The Hunt is On
by Farmerbob1
Summary: Several years before canon Worm, a thief with bad luck buys powers from Cauldron and gets more than he bargained for. He meets Mouse Protector, and they hit it off. Eventually, the two uncover the secret of Simurgh's nature, and all hell breaks loose.
1. Chapter 1

Before you read this, I will warn that the first Epilogue is where I originally intended to end the story. It's a very jagged ending that I felt was appropriate to the Worm universe.

I was convinced that it was simply too jagged. I eventually agreed with this, but chose to address it in the future, after the first epilogue, in a second epilogue, rather then removing the first epilogue.

You have been warned.

* * *

I leaned back against the white vinyl padded bench. The tissue paper crinkled obnoxiously loudly - there was nothing to absorb the sound in the room, as the floor, walls, and ceiling were all covered in a bright white tile. My eyes were drawn to the heavy bandages around my left foot and I squinted hard to force away memories of death and panic so I could concentrate on the second most important thing that had ever happened to me. I touched the crutches leaning against the counter next to the bench, just to be sure they were stable. Then I carefully controlled my arms and did not allow them to wrap around my chest in order to try to retain some warmth, despite the raging case of goosebumps. It was cold in the room, and the coldness wasn't all measured in Celsius.

The woman in the lab coat was very clinical. From the time I hobbled on my crutches through the strange hole in the air, I had felt more like a lab rat than a paying customer. That bothered me more than anything else. There was something very wrong about her attitude. Typically people who were selling things tried to at least act like they had some warmth. I kept my mouth shut though. Buying powers with the money from fenced stolen jewelry didn't make me a customer with legal rights. As far as I knew, Doctor Mother didn't have any sort of known power, but one never knew. I certainly didn't have powers. Not yet, anyhow.

"Mr. Davis, you have requested a tinkering power and a breaker survivability power. We can supply that." Her pen moved on the page of the clipboard, obviously checking something off.

After a brief pause she continued. "As noted in the contract we signed with you, the powers we sell are not fully predictable. We do not know exactly what abilities you will acquire. The process is certain enough that we can be confident what types of powers you get, but there is still some uncertainty." She paused. "There is even a possibility of death or mutation. Are you certain that you wish to go forward? We will refund ninety percent of your full payment if you wish to back out of the contract."

I stared at her, and she glanced over to her bodyguard, who merely nodded fractionally. I saw the doctor's eyes track downward and caught the bodyguard's hand moving, clearly signaling something in a sign language that looked a lot like what a catcher might use to signal to a baseball pitcher. Three fingers pointed down.

The bodyguard looked at me. I shivered and averted my gaze away from her back to Doctor Mother. The woman scared the hell out of me. I was pretty sure I knew who she was, based on scuttlebutt I'd heard while Tim and I were arranging this deal. Contessa. A cape you never, ever wanted to fuck with. Period. Even if you had powers of your own.

Doctor Mother looked back at me. "Mr. Davis, I need you to acknowledge that you accept the danger and wish to continue. Even though we are not under the jurisdiction of any government, we still attempt to make certain that our customers understand the risk. You could afford a great deal of medical care for the price you are paying us."

 _Stop wasting time. I'd rather not think about how dangerous this might be_ , I thought to myself as I tried to keep my voice civil. "I am certain I wish to go forward with the procedure, regardless of the risk of death."

The doctor's pen made another checkmark on the page.

If I managed to stay out of jail, sure, she was right. Medical care is free in prisons anyway - so are the injections administered by inmates. My brother Tim had spent some time in the big house and absolutely refused to talk about it at all. He never would talk about it either, because he'd been killed by the police in the high speed chase after we robbed the seventh jewelry store.

I closed my eyes, grimacing against the pain in my foot. I hadn't gotten away without injury myself. My foot had been mangled pretty badly by the bullet that went through it. It could have been worse - it had been worse for Tim. He caught a bullet through the chest as we drove away, and I'm pretty sure he was dead before we even made it to the highway.

"As agreed in the amendment, due to the additional funds you brought to us, we will be providing a slightly more potent mixture, which should result in a substantial increase in your power levels. Again, we must stress that the additional potency means additional risk. Are you certain that you wish to incur said additional risk?" The doctor peered over the top of her reading glasses at me. Coffee-brown face calm, clinical, like she was discussing the weather instead of my upcoming guinea pig adventure. "If you wish to drop the amendment to our agreement, that money we will return to you in full. We have not yet adjusted the mixture to the higher potency. It will take only a few moments to do so. Please verbally state your response."

 _I strongly suspect you're bullshitting me somehow, Doctor, but I'm not calling you on it. I'll probably get the same juice no matter what I pay, but if Tim had to die, I'm going to at least try to get something more out of this._ I thought in her direction, but saw no response in her eyes.

"Doctor, I want the most bang for my buck. If I get any sort of moderately useful power, I'll be able to make money enough to support myself. I've already got some connections, and I did save back enough seed money after fencing the goods and paying the doc to live on for a year or so if I need to. I have no desire to nullify the amendment."

The pen moved again, the precise down-up of a checkmark. "One last thing. As discussed, we will require you to perform three favors for Cauldron in the next two years. The favors will not require felony lawbreaking, but may require misdemeanor lawbreaking. You cannot refuse to perform the favors. If you attempt to refuse to perform the favors, you will incur our wrath." She looked over the top of the clipboard, and the eyes were hard and cold, like a snake. There was no need for her to specify what the punishment would be. I was rather certain I knew.

"I understand I will be obligated to per... perform three favors over two years for the Cauldron." I cursed myself for the stutter. I was showing weakness to a criminal when in their facility, wounded, with no weapons. There was nothing to stop them from simply giving me Drano instead of power juice.

The doctor's expression softened a little and she nodded. The pen made one last check on the clipboard, and she handed me the clipboard with the single sheet of paper on it. "Please read the document. It is plain English, no lawyer bullshit." She smiled at me, a tight, but genuine smile - the first real emotion I'd seen from her. "Being outside the law means we don't have to deal with lawyers. Please read it, and then put your initials by each check and print your name then sign and date the bottom."

I did read it. Not that it mattered. I'd come too far now to turn back. Tim and I were supposed to be doing this together. He had wanted speedster powers, I had wanted tinker powers. We had robbed six jewelry stores and fenced the stolen goods before the seventh that was supposed to be the last. Everything had fallen apart. The law had apparently picked out a pattern to our robberies that even we didn't know we'd been following, and they were waiting.

My fist clenched hard and the pen bent. I put my initials next to the four checks, printed, signed and dated like I'd been told.

The doctor looked at the paper on the clipboard, then held out her hand.

"Oh, sorry." I gave her back the pen I'd reflexively stolen.

After retrieving her pen from me, she tucked it into a pocket with a clear plastic protector. Then she set the clipboard on the counter next to the tiny sink, stood, and walked over to a nearby workspace. A small refrigerator was opened with the whisper of a vacuum seal breaking. There were two vials visible in the refrigerator. One vial was far fuller than the other, I could see. The liquids looked very similar.

The doctor emptied the nearly empty vial into the half-full vial. There didn't seem to be any reaction. The now-empty vial was set back in the little fridge, and Doctor Mother brought the vial with my future in it over to me while placing some sort of seal over the top.

"Please be careful. Do not drop it. We will not reimburse you if you do. If you do drop it, I suggest you start licking as soon as you can, and ignore the glass shards if the vial does break. The tile is very smooth, and you should be able to get at least some benefit from the power juice you manage to lick up off the floor before it evaporates, if you act quickly." She handed me the vial. "The seal on the top of the vial will be removable after we leave the room and the red light over the door goes active."

Nodding, I dry-swallowed, and held tightly to the vial with both hands.

Doctor mother picked up her clipboard and left the room, followed by the bodyguard, who never stopped watching me with eyes that seemed strangely sad.

I broke eye contact with the bodyguard and looked down, shaking my head. I was imagining the sadness. I was sure of it. Bodyguards like her didn't do sad. I wasn't an expert on organized crime, but I'd been involved in it long enough I'd met quite a few criminal bodyguards. They didn't do emotions when they were on duty.

Something about the entire scenario felt weird though. I was good at judging people, and I knew the two women had been acting to some degree or another. The hand signals I'd seen clearly indicated there was something else going on that I wasn't supposed to be fully aware of.

Tim and I had spent weeks researching triggers and powers after he got out of prison. He had made the initial contact with Cauldron through another prisoner, whose name he'd never told me. I thought about how natural trigger events were supposed to work for a moment. Natural triggers tended to develop powers that could relieve the stress or resolve the problem that was stressing the person who was triggering.

I held up the vial. Maybe they had simply been trying to keep me from being stressed, so my stress wouldn't interfere with the development of a chemically forced trigger? That made as much sense as anything else. If that was the case though, I would have expected sedation, hypnotherapy, or something to force me to be calm.

The door clicked shut behind the bodyguard and then there were more loud noises indicating heavy things moving and fitting in place. Reinforcements sliding into place behind the door. I looked at the vial, still held in both hands.

Doctor Mother's voice came over the intercom, and the light over the door turned from green to red. "We are disabling the locking cap on the vial now, Mr. Davis. Drink quickly, please. The power juice will evaporate rapidly when warmed to human body temperature by your hands."

After carefully grasping the vial with one hand and the cap with the other, and the cap came off easily. I sniffed the cap quickly, and then the vial.

 _Well, it doesn't smell like Drano. More like peppermint._ I thought to myself.

Realizing that I was letting the fluid evaporate, I started lifting the vial to my mouth, then stopped.

 _This one's for you, Tim._ I thought before I spoke out loud.

"Time cuts down all, both great and small."

I raised the vial directly in front of me, mimed clinking a shot glass with a drinking partner, and brought the vial back to my lips and poured the vial down in one go. It tasted like peppermint schnapps.

Looking at the vial and the cap, I started thinking. I still wasn't feeling anything. I looked at the cap, and it didn't look like it had any sharp edges, so I popped it in my mouth and swallowed it.

Then I examined the vial, and saw a couple drops at the bottom. I tore a strip of the tissue paper off the padded bench I was sitting on, rolled it up, and stuck it into the tube, then let the tissue paper roll unfurl. The tissue paper immediately became moist, and I carefully pulled it out without tearing it. I quickly popped the small rolled piece of tissue in my mouth and swallowed it. Then I repeated the process with a second piece of tissue, which came away just a bit wet. The third strip of tissue came back bone dry, but I ate it anyway.

I looked in the tube, closely peering from inches away with my eye. Was there anything left in there? Maybe some dried residue? The sink was close enough to the bench I was sitting on that I could get to it without crutches. I carefully stood on my good foot and hopped to the sink.

Turning the spigot, I started a tiny trickle of water, quickly setting the mouth of the vial under it. I filled it halfway with water, covered the top with my right thumb, gave it a good shake, and put the water down the hatch.

I quickly repeated the process. I was damn well going to get what I paid for.

About a minute after I'd drunk the main contents of the vial, I was drinking the fourth half-vial of water. Or maybe the fifth? I started to feel a bit woozy and weird, almost like bed spins.

I tried to fill the vial again, but I couldn't match the right vial with the right stream of water coming out of the tap. As I watched, there were four vials and streams, then eight, then a lot more. I saw hundreds of vials fall from hundreds of my hands into the sink.

The world tilted on several axis simultaneously. I felt myself starting to fall and remembered my foot. I needed to protect my foot. I pushed myself away from the counter and towards the bench, trying, hoping to get my chest over the top of the bench to maybe keep me from falling.

My attempt to get to the bench failed, and I started to fall, which was going to hurt, a lot. I might even re-open the wound on my foot. I tried to yell for help, but only heard myself growl as I crumpled to the floor. My entire body was a mass of pain. I felt bones moving, changing shape. My legs and wrists felt like someone was tying them in knots. My face felt like someone had grabbed my upper and lower jaws and tried to rip them off.

The pain was simply too much for me to handle. As I blacked out, I watched my arm turn brown and furry, but there was something wrong with the fur.

After the darkness was complete, the last thing I saw was a test signal. One of the round images that used to come before films and some black and white TV shows. I'd never actually seen one on TV, but I remember asking the coach about it when they forced us to watch that ignorant crap "Reefer Madness" in health class.

As I fell into darkness, I felt that, somehow, I was not alone.


	2. Chapter 2

I slowly woke to a sense of impatience and extreme cold. The reason for the coldness was immediately obvious as my eyes opened and I looked around. I was frozen in a block of opaque ice from my neck down. I couldn't see my body. That bothered me, for reasons I wasn't sure of. My last few moments of consciousness had been of falling down, and my arm turning... brown and hairy?

The impatience had instantly disappeared as my eyes opened, replaced by an incredibly intense chaos in my mind. Everything around me seemed to hold deeper meaning. I was in what seemed to be a walk-in freezer. I heard the motor of the refrigeration system, and felt the cold air blowing against me. That much seemed normal. But I was also able to tell the size and rotational velocity of the fan, as well as know it was a squirrel-cage type fan instead of a bladed fan. I knew exactly where the fan was, and I could feel a part of my mind rapidly filling in the other pieces needed to build a complete understanding of the fan. An image of the motor that turned the fan was next, and then the shape of the housing. The length of the wires. Margins of error. Branchings of potential design as the extrapolation grew more imprecise.

All of this from the sound of the fan and feel of the air on my head. Dozens of possible designs for the unseen refrigeration unit were categorized by likelihood, and then filed away. There was something of a sense of wonder in my mind that felt different from my own sense of awe.

 _Well, it seems like I got the tinker power at least,_ I thought to myself. _I hope I can do more than reverse engineer machines based on sound and air currents though._

I could have sworn I heard a huff and a snort, but I knew I hadn't made the noise. I tried to speak, to ask "Who's there?" but my throat felt weird. The noises I made sounded more like huffs, whines, and growls than words. For all I knew, it was normal to not be able to speak for a while after drinking the stuff that gave cape powers. The doctor would know. Maybe I was just dehydrated?

It seemed normal to me that I should be excited and awed by my new abilities, but part of me seemed in some way... amazed by the refrigeration unit. That was just odd. I considered the diagrams in my head. I wasn't an engineer, but I did understand condensed gas refrigeration, and there didn't seem to be any oddness about any of the designs that my mind had catalogued.

I looked down at the block of ice again. I was still extremely cold, but I wasn't shivering uncontrollably. I realized at that point that I was certainly at least a little tougher than a normal human. Someone had frozen me inside a block of ice from the neck down. Hypothermia should have been developing rapidly, but I didn't feel the tingly pain in my hands and feet. It was just cold.

 _Maybe I need to stay this cold to survive?_ I thought. _That would certainly limit my ability to live in comfort in most places._

I immediately got the feeling that this was not true. In my mind I _felt_ someone shaking their finger at me, correcting me like a schoolchild.

I knew that thought hadn't come from me. Was there some kind of mind controller making me do things?

Again, a denial. Humor. Impatience.

Then my head moved, angling up, and I felt my mind disassembling the light fixtures in much the same way as I'd reverse engineered the cooling system. I could _see_ the lights, and the data collected about the fans paled in comparison to the sheer mass of data flooding my mind about the lights in the freezer.

I knew that the covers were a form of acrylic. I knew the chemical composition of the acrylic. Somehow, based on how the light was being refracted, I could sense the microstructures inside the acrylic and knew how the light covers had been formed. Vast arrays of potential machines built themselves in my mind, to explain how the acrylic shell of the lights had been manufactured. Exploded diagrams of every component of the lights suddenly evolved into incredibly complex chains of knowledge.

A moment later my head snapped towards the light switch. More of the intense reverse engineering. Seconds later, I felt something calculating electrical wiring paths in the walls. A few of the potential designs of the cooling unit disappeared.

The little speaker grill next to the door was analyzed, and then the door, hinges, and seals. After that, the metal walls were analyzed, the floor, the ceiling. As more data was collected, the mental image in my head of the workings of the cooler grew more precise. There were fewer and fewer options.

Suddenly, without any warning, my head turned completely around. I literally faced directly behind me, and the last four potential designs of the cooling system were reduced to one.

"Holy Shit" I tried to say aloud, but all that came out was a yelp that sounded like a dog having its tail stepped on.

 _I just did an Exorcist headspin?_ I started to panic a little. A placating feeling came from whatever else was in my head with me, and what almost felt like an apology.

I should be panicking more, I realized. _More importantly,_ _ **why**_ _am I not panicking more?_ I made an effort to push that thought to the presence in my head, with insistence.

There was a brief moment of consideration, followed by a decision. I felt the presence in my head gather its concentration briefly. Suddenly, a white sheet of paper appeared where there had been nothing, it was taped to the wall a little crookedly. Almost haphazardly.

On the paper, there were three words, written in very clear all capitals:

 **BODY STRUCTURE CHANGED**

I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not that the presence in my head had just responded to me. The old adage that 'It's perfectly acceptable to talk to yourself - as long as you didn't talk back.' flashed through my mind.

The other in my mind latched onto that thought. I felt it consider the idea, and then agree with it.

 _Why does that not make me feel any better?_ I shot my thought to the other, sharply.

There was confusion, a sense of realization, followed by an outrageous outburst of humor mixed with sympathy.

There was another strange gathering of concentration and a new sheet of paper appeared, taped over the prior one.

 **SANITY IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN GENIUS**

 _Are you really another intelligence, or are you a split personality?_ I shot back.

There were several seconds of contemplation so ponderously heavy that it hurt my head. I could not even begin to follow the mental processes as it turned its thoughts inward in self-analysis.

 **THAT WE ARE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT WE ARE.**

There was a feeling of unease and evasion in the mind. I addressed it. _So, you don't know?_

I felt my shoulders try to shrug as a very brief moment of irritation washed over me. There was no additional note on the wall. Somehow it made me feel better that the genius in my head was just as stumped as me.

I could _feel_ the mental snort of irritation directed at me.

Both of our attentions were grabbed instantly as the speaker came to life, and I recognized the voice of Doctor Mother. "Mr. Davis. We know that you are now awake. We apologize for restraining you in this manner, but our threat analysis indicated that you might be violent if you awakened unrestrained. Freezing you in a block of ice was likely the least dangerous way to allow you to regain consciousness. Your power manifested in an exceedingly strange pattern, as you have likely already determined. If you wish more privacy, let us know and we will give you another hour to try to adjust."

I tried to say something, to ask for release from my icy bonds, but only a few growls came out.

A bolt of realization struck me. I remembered a few seconds before, when my head had turned around. I hadn't been able to speak then, either. Before that, I had tried to talk and no words had come out, but I'd passed it off as possibly due to drinking the power juice. Since those two occurrences, I hadn't even been trying to talk out loud to the other in my head, internalizing it.

 _Body structure changed, you told me. Am I unable to speak?_ I thought at the other.

There was a simple affirmation in the returned thought.

 _Well, crap._ I thought to myself.

"Mr. Davis, please let us know if you are ready to speak to us." The doctor's voice again, patient.

They couldn't see me blink once for yes, twice for no. Or, at least I was fairly certain they couldn't.

I made a few test sounds, and then after I figured out how to make a consistent 'yip' I started to yip in a pattern. I repeated the pattern three times. "Yip. Yipyip. Yip. Yipyip. Yip. Yipyip."

There was silence for a few seconds after I stopped yipping.

"What means yes?" She asked.

"Yip." I replied.

"What means no?"

"Yipyip."

"One Yip for yes, two yips for no?"

"Yip."

"What about if you don't know?"

I hadn't thought about that. "Yipyipyip."

"Three yips for uncertainty?"

"Yip."

There was a pause. "Do you want to speak to us now?"

 _Yes, dammit. I might not be dying in this block of ice, but it's still cold as hell._ "Yip."

The door opened, and I was stunned. Not by the light, or the warmth, but by the sheer volume of analysis that the other performed as the door opened. As the door opened, and more of what was outside the door became visible, the calculations and reverse engineering grew painfully intense.

I struggled to watch the doctor and her bodyguard through the distraction and pain. The bodyguard appeared to be carrying some sort of weapon, but did not seem to be ready to use it. She was watching me very closely though.

 _Calm down, I need to be able to think. This is important!_ I mentally shouted at the other.

The other reacted with sudden startlement. A moment later, I could feel a halfhearted grumble of apology. The calculations continued, but I could feel that they had been prioritized based on threat and risk. The weapon that the bodyguard was carrying was being analyzed first. I couldn't follow anything more than the fact that the thing apparently had a superconducting capacitor for a power source. The other presence in my head seemed concerned about that weapon, even fearful.

I stopped trying to track what the tinkerbrain was doing and tried to concentrate on Doctor Mother as she took a single step into the freezer. She was wearing a windbreaker, but no other cold weather gear. The door was left open.

"So, you cannot speak?"

"Yip" I replied.

I saw her eyes suddenly focus on the notes on the wall. She mumbled the words half to herself. "That we are is more important than what we are." The bodyguard had noticed the shift in the doctor's attention, and put her hand on the doctor's shoulder, gently pulling her back.

A moment later the bodyguard grabbed the papers off the wall and the two women backed out of the freezer.

"One moment, Mr. Davis. We will not close the door, but we will create a field blocking light and sound. We do not wish to concern you with our worries until we determine if they are valid."

What else could I do? "Yip."

The bodyguard touched a device attached to her belt, and a pitch black, egg-shaped field appeared around the two women.

When the field appeared, I couldn't help but scream. "Kiyiyiyiyi!" in pain as my tinkerbrain attempted to analyze the energies released. Different analysis of the field failed catastrophically to intersect with the brief glimpse of the device that had apparently generated the field. There were great shrieks of mental anguish and irritation assaulting me - it seemed like a mental train wreck.

 _Stop!_ I screamed internally. _That hurts like hell!_

My complaint was ignored for several seconds. If I'd been able to, I would have happily hit my head with a brick to knock myself out to stop the pain.

After hundreds of attempts to design a model of how the field we could see was generated, I felt the intelligence inside me raging, furious. The presence was maddened by its inability to understand the field and the device that created it. The pain receded. The intelligence was sullen and brooding, I could sense that it was trying to imagine new ways to approach the problem.

I really didn't care if the tinkerbrain figured out the black egg field. I just wanted it to stop frying my brains while it tried. I poked it with a mental stick. _It's probably tinker tech. They do weird shit with science._

I felt a mental sensation of the tinkerbrain intelligence looming menacingly for just a moment at my audacity, telling it about science.

 _Back off!_ I yelled at the tinkerbrain. _I know a little bit about tinker powers. Not enough to help you understand the black egg field, but enough to know why you can't understand it. If you know human science, it's not enough!_

There was a sensation of confusion, briefly, before I felt a decision being made. The strange gathering of concentration that had occurred before each letter was stuck on the wall returned, and it felt far more intense than before. There was a sensation of strain, and then, suddenly, there was a podium in front of us with a massive book on it.

The cover of the book read:

 **A TREATISE ON NON-HUMAN TECHNOLOGIES CAPABLE OF GENERATING EGG SHAPED FIELDS WHICH BLOCK SOUND AND ABSORB LIGHT.**

As I watched, the book started flipping pages by itself at an astounding rate. I couldn't even make out what was on any page, but I could feel the tinkerbrain straining to absorb the knowledge. I was awed as I realized that it was reading and comprehending the knowledge faster than I could recognize that it was knowledge.

The book slammed shut, and there was another moment of concentration, not as intense as the one that summoned the book. Suddenly there were goggles on my face and everything I could see rapidly devolved into static.

My head jerked back in surprise. A moment later the world slowly reformed, but slowly resolved back into a clear picture again. That clear picture included us being able to see the two women staring at us from inside a hazy egg-shaped field.

"Fourteen seconds to analyze and generate countermeasures. He can hear and see us now, Doctor." The bodyguard said.

"So quickly. So impressive. So chaotic. The field is doing nothing now, please turn it off." Doctor mother nodded to her bodyguard, who reached one hand down to the device on her belt, touched it, and then immediately brought that hand back up to join her other hand holding the weapon she wasn't _quite_ pointing at us.

In my mind, I felt the tinkerbrain methodically sorting knowledge.

The doctor took two steps towards me, and reached out a hand towards the book on the podium, but didn't touch it. "May I examine the book?" she asked.

The tinkerbrain didn't seem to care.

Hesitantly I responded "Yip."

She picked up the book, which was apparently extremely heavy, as she grunted a little with the weight. After leaning against the wall, giving her bodyguard a clearer shot at us, I noticed, the Doctor flipped through the first few pages of the book before sighing and slapping the cover shut. "I think its gibberish, but it apparently worked for you. Typical of tinker tech. Still it's tinker tech documenting other tinker tech, somehow. That by itself is remarkably interesting. Do you still retain knowledge of how the privacy field works?"

I felt a bit of confusion from the tinkerbrain, and a moment of panic as it scrabbled to collect fragments of data that had apparently been degrading. There was more worry and confusion than rage, thankfully, and the mental scrabbling wasn't accompanied by physical pain.

"Mr. Davis, please trust us."

 _I trust you to act only in your own self-interest, Doctor._ I thought, cautiously.

It didn't seem smart to tell them that the knowledge seemed transitory. It probably wasn't a good idea to lie either. I really wasn't entirely certain the knowledge was gone. It might just be harder to remember, or fading and would require more study for the tinkerbrain to retain it.

"Yipyipyip."

There was a puzzled look on the doctor's face and she looked at her bodyguard, who made several gestures with her fingers.

After a moment, Doctor Mother nodded. "I understand that you are not happy in your present circumstances. I would probably also be reluctant to cooperate, if I were in your shoes." She paused. More signals from the bodyguard.

 _That's strange,_ I thought as I realized that the Doctor didn't seem to be providing any signals, only receiving them.

The bodyguard noticed me staring at her and stared back. Her eyes squinted a bit and then she spoke for the second time. "Doctor, this is taking too long. We should just release him. You have another appointment."

The doctor seemed taken aback by the statement, but agreed immediately, _before_ she clumsily looked at her watch.

 _She's not calling the shots here._ I realized as my eyes swiveled. _The bodyguard, Contessa, is in charge._

Doctor Mother stepped out of the freezer, and then around the corner of the doorway out of sight. The bodyguard gave more signals in the direction of the doctor, and then spoke to me, directly, for the first time. "You know who I am. I will _know_ if you plan on telling other people what you just figured out." She paused, and smiled, a cold, calculated smile that was vastly colder than the ice block I was trapped in. "Anyone who you do manage to tell before I silence you will also need to be silenced. Do you understand?"

I was too scared to yip, I just dry-swallowed and nodded my head rapidly.

She stared at me for an instant. "I see that you understand."

Yes, I understood. I could also tell that the tinkerbrain also understood. It seemed very unhappily fixated on the weapon which was apparently some sort of plasma generator.

Contessa backed up with a little grin, keeping the weapon nearly in line with us, but not pointed directly at us.

I heard Doctor Mother's voice. "Custodian, please pack Mr. Davis's personal possessions into his carry bag, and bring it plus the new clothes to my location."

Contessa backed up several feet and tucked the plasma weapon under her left arm, her left hand still on the trigger. She pulled a small pistol from a holster on her right leg. "I am going to fire three rounds. The rounds are standard rounds, and even if they were to hit you, you would not be harmed to any significant degree. The three rounds will shatter the ice. You are to remain inside the freezer after the ice is shattered. Your property and your new clothing will be provided to you in the freezer. You will have sixty seconds to dress, and then you will be teleported. Do you understand?"

I understood. "Yip." The noise was weak, so I added a nervous nod.

True to her word, three rounds were fired. Only one was fired directly at us, striking the ice above our stomach. The other two were fired at glancing angles into the freezer, and struck the ice from behind. The tinkerbrain was completely unworried about the pistol, all of its concern seemed directed at the plasma weapon.

I stumbled forward and fell to my knees as the ice broke apart. Immediately after the ice was no longer in contact with my body, I felt no more cold sensation. There was no transition. One moment I was cold, the next instant, I was fine.

After my knees hit the ground, I rapidly stood again to see myself better. I looked down and saw a two-tone brown, shaggy body. My hands had opposable digits, but the fingers were furry and clawed. I had legs like a normal human with absurdly large feet, but overall I seemed ridiculously thin. Looking down at my chest and stomach, I could see that the hair there was a creamy brown. The rest of me was a chocolate brown. Tentatively, I reached up and felt my face, and it was clearly not a human face.

Somehow, through all the last half hour or so since I'd awakened, I hadn't ever noticed the nose in front of my face. My muzzle, I should say. Nearly a foot long, more like a beak than a nose, and I had completely missed it, almost like I was used to it being there. My searching hands found lots of sharp teeth. I was clearly a carnivore with very large, upright ears. Stunned, I realized what I truly looked like. I reached behind myself, and as expected, there was a tail.

 _Tim and I, we only joked about this._ I was the better planner, he was the better doer. Every now and then when we were tossing back a few shots at the house after finishing a planning session, we'd joked about me being Wile E. Coyote, and him being the Roadrunner. It seemed like a tinker and speedster combination could be an excellent synergy, and it fit our temperaments.

I didn't want to think about Tim right now. Too much baggage with Contessa staring at me with her finger on the trigger of a weapon my tinker... Wile E. was scared of. As I named the presence, it grew slightly more relaxed. Wile E. was almost certainly some sort of manifestation of my desires, wish fulfilment in some fashion.

Trying to distract myself from thinking about my brother, I poked myself on the forearm with a claw to see if I was real, and if I could draw blood. There was a little pain, but the claw didn't penetrate. I poked harder, and there was pain again, and the claw entered my forearm. Strangely, there was no blood, and no sign of a wound when the claw was removed.

My duffel bag and a stack of clothing floated to a stop in front of us, and then were set down. The ice and puddles of water were floated away, leaving the floor of the freezer dry. I heard footsteps, and there was a slight distortion of the air with a vaguely humanoid shape that I could see with the goggles, if I squinted.

There was impatience coming from Wile E. I felt my limbs twitching towards the clothing.

I realized that Wile E.'s desire for clothing seemed to be an indication that he was a part of me, or based on me. Wile E. didn't wear clothes, but I'd be uncomfortable going without.

There was a mental snort and all of a sudden I didn't feel any urge from him to put on the clothes.

Smiling to myself, I rapidly put on the absurdly oversized running shoes, the jogging pants, and the hoodie. My nose stuck well over half a foot out beyond the hoodie.

 _So much for being inconspicuous._ I thought to myself as I picked up the duffel bag and slung it over my shoulder. It seemed to weigh about what I'd expect it to, without the many stacks of used one hundred dollar bills that no longer occupied it. I clearly didn't get any sort of brute power.

 _I'm a damned cartoon character. I should be freaking out._ I did feel a little bit of panic try to start setting in, but it quickly faded in a burst of irritation from Wile E. _Body structure changed, indeed._

Intentionally not looking at Contessa, so I didn't accidentally learn something _else_ that might get me killed, I pulled my sleeve back and poked myself again as I stood waiting for the teleport. Not only was I brown and furry, I felt a lot like plastic.

I heard Doctor Mother's voice from around the corner from me. "Door." A single word.

A hole opened in the air in front of me, and Wile E. started trying to go nuts in my head to figure out how it worked.

I stumbled and screamed at Wile E. _Stop that! Do you want to get us killed?_

There was a clear sense of apology directed at me, but I could still sense Wile E.'s extreme frustration at the impossible hole in the air.

Contessa made a brief sweeping motion with the barrel of her weapon, not quite pointing it at us. "Walk through the portal."

I stared at the portal, wondering where it led. I certainly did not recognize the street level view that seemed to be pointing out of an alley. The buildings were strangely constructed.

I saw a small motion. The barrel of Contessa's plasma weapon was now pointed at us directly. "Three. Two."

I jumped through the portal, and then stood to look around. The portal was already gone. I stepped out of the alley and into the street, looking up and down the way. We were obviously in high mountains. _Is this Colorado or maybe California?_

Wile E. was indicating a negative, and I felt my arm twitch then point at a sign. Lausanne. The name meant nothing to me, but Wile E's control of my arm continued pointing out bits of written language in storefronts. German or something. I walked over and looked at a newspaper. Definitely not English or even Spanish.

Wile E. Snorted in my head impatiently, and I found myself walking into a nearby shop that looked like a little mom-and-pop drugstore, but it was built of stone, not concrete or brick, and it just felt old. Very old.

As we entered, I felt the cursory categorization of everything we passed. It all seemed to have very low level priority. The stone, how it was cut, the tools needed. Real chiseled stone. The visible wood was hundreds of years old, stained heavily and darkly an indeterminate number of times, Wile. E estimated around three hundred stain coats plus or minus twenty on some of the big timbers across the ceiling. Cigarette lighters, little flashlights, and all sorts of other items one might expect to see in a convenience store or a small general drugstore.

There was a little middle-aged man watching a small black and white portable TV in the front of the shop. He did a double-take when he saw me, but then settled back down, watching me and the TV at the same time. His hand hovered near a part of his desk where there was almost certainly an alarm button. I'd seen that look before.

The voices coming out of the TV were not English, I noted. They were speaking European languages, I recognized some words.

We walked up to the counter without picking anything up and he stood, slowly, walked halfway towards the counter, keeping his hand near the alarm button and said "Puis-je vous aider?" It was clear he was worried, and he did not look directly at our face.

 _That was French,_ I thought to myself, as I shrugged.

When we didn't reply he looked back at the TV for a second andthen back at us. "Wie kann ich dir helfen?"

And that sounded German, I thought as I shrugged and picked up a pen off the counter and dragged a little notepad over in front of me. I wrote on the pad "Do you speak English?" and turned it around so he could read it, stepping back from the counter a bit.

He leaned forward, and read what I had written. "Ja. Some. Little." His hand was trembling on the button.

I took a slow step forward, and wrote another message. "What country is this?" Then I turned the pad around again and stepped back.

He hesitantly looked at the pad, and then stared at me, biting his lip as he thought for a moment. "Switzerland." Then he swallowed. "No hide face?" As he said that, he mimed removing a mask.

 _Thanks buddy, for reminding me that I'm a freak now._

We turned away and walked out the door, as I fumed a little inside. In our peripheral vision, I noticed the man pick up the phone and dial rapidly. We turned right as soon as we left the shop and started running down the street, not at a sprint, just jogging. The body seemed to be in pretty decent shape and ran well, despite the preposterously-sized feet. I really didn't want an encounter with the law.

 _How in the hell am I getting back to the states from here?_

Hundreds of schematics started scrolling through my mind, making me stumble. I slowed to a walk and started paying attention to the ideas, some of which looked absurdly suicidal. Giant bottlerockets propelled by nitroglycerine were right out. _How in the hell would you even guide a bottle rocket?_ I practically yelled at Wile E. I felt a mental shrug, and then a diagram of us tied to the rocket with artificial bat wings was popped into my mind's eye.

 _No. Just no. I need to let you see a real airplane before you get us killed._

 _That_ got an immediate response, an intense eagerness from my felow head-mate. A hunger that made me search the sky, looking for an airplane.

That's when we first heard the song. I felt our ears twitch inside the hoodie, and before I could stop him, Wile E. had pulled back the hood. Our ears popped straight up in the air and began to swivel, triangulating the source.

I felt that concentration that indicated he was going to summon something. Moments later, a huge, impossibly-bent-looking collapsible spyglass popped into my hands, and Wile E. raised it to our eye while our ears continued to find the source of the song.

After a little adjustment, we spotted a speck, miles away. My hands moved without my controlling them, and the spyglass zoomed in even more.

About the most surreal thing I had ever seen up to that point came into focus. It was a woman covered with wings of many shapes and sizes!

As I stared at the woman who, arguably, had pulled an even worse wild card than me in the appearance lottery, I felt Wile E shifting in my mind. I tried to move our arms, and couldn't. The spyglass stayed fixed in position.

In the spyglass, the image of the woman covered with wings morphed into a large, steaming pile of chicken wings.


	3. Chapter 3

_No. No. No. We are not eating anyone, you maniac!_

I could feel a vast frustration and some anger, but all of a sudden that disappeared in a flash of inspiration.

The gigantic, chaotically bent spyglass was snapped out away from us, straightening it, then with a flick of our wrist, it collapsed into a tube the size of a can of soda. The collapsed device was placed in the hoodie pocket.

A moment later, after a moment of concentration, a large easel appeared in front of us, and a big marker with ACME written on it was sitting in the easel tray. Our hand reached out to pick it up.

I had never been an artist, but apparently I now was, at least with line art.

Within seconds, there was a picture of a man sitting at a dinner table with knife and fork held in his hands. Underneath the table, A stalk of corn and a pumpkin were drawn, circled, and an arrow drawn to the man's plate.

There was a very clear expression of curiosity in my mind.

 _Of course, we can eat plants!_ I replied to Wile E.

The marker tapped the vegetables, and put a check mark on them.

A series of pictures of animals were drawn. Fish, chicken, cow, pig. I answered yes to them all.

Then he drew a human.

 _No. Definitely not. That's cannibalism!_ I shouted at the nutcase in my head.

He drew an X on the man next to the pig, and I mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he started drawing another table next to the man, a few inches apart. A bipedal coyote. Complete with knife and fork like the man.

In growing horror I realized what he was about to do, but I couldn't act quickly enough to stop him. Between the man and the coyote, he put a bit equal sign, and then a diagonal slash through it.

 _No, dammit. I'm still human._

There was a sensation of humor and irritation, sarcasm.

My left hand reached behind me, and pulled my tail. Hard. It hurt. Then the left hand stroked my ears.

 _I don't care what we look like, I'm human, Wile E.!_ I yelled at him. _I'm not eating another person. People don't do that!_

There was a brief moment of confusion. Then a bit of hopefulness. Wile E. reached out with our hand and drew a little bone through the nose of the man.

 _What? No. No._

I could feel disagreement in my head.

 _Dammit, Wile E., yes, sometimes people do eat other people, but we're not going to do that._

I could feel Wile E. thinking again, a hopeful sensation, and I braced myself as he started drawing again.

A picture of the woman covered with wings quickly appeared. Right below the chicken.

 _Dammit, no, Wile. E. She's not a chicken. She's just as much human as I am._

There was violent disagreement.

 _What?_

Wile E. started drawing quickly again, next to the picture of the many-winged woman. A measuring stick, marked as "2 meters" reached only up to her hips. He drew a stick figure Coyote-man standing next to her, and between the two, he put a greater than sign, with the open end facing the woman.

 _Stop trying to find loopholes. She's human too, just like I'm human. We both changed because of the powers we got!_

My hand threw down the marker in a fit. In my mind Wile E. raged at me wordlessly as my body stood almost motionlessly, my foot tapping, my arms crossed in front of me. I smelled smoke.

 _Stop throwing a tantrum. If you want something to eat, we can buy a steak or something. Or a pork shoulder. I have no idea how much we can eat, but I've got money to buy food. Hell, if we absolutely have to, we can start raising roadrunners if that's what it takes to keep you happy. I've never eaten one but I think some people do._

The anger immediately disappeared, followed by an immense happiness.

 _Cooked!_ I added, pointedly.

There was a chuckle and agreement from Wile E.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then the song started again, much crisper and clearer. My ears swiveled. The many-winged woman was coming closer.

As I looked towards where my ears had swiveled, I saw dozens of people staring at me, and at the easel. I was pretty sure the uniforms on the men and women standing closest to me, about twenty feet away, made them police officers. They had badges on their shirts, and they had the same style hats, even though the hats looked ridiculous on the men. The road was blocked in both directions, about a hundred or so feet from me.

 _Shit!_ I thought. _I'm wanted in the states. They knew our names at the bank. The Europeans extradite common criminals at no risk of the death penalty. I know Tim didn't hit anyone when he shot into the air, and I never even had a weapon on me. If they arrest us and figure out who I am..._

My left hand slapped my face.

 _What?_

My right hand extended a finger and tapped the image of the Coyote, firmly, and the finger remained there. My left hand reached out and covered the picture of the man completely.

I pulled my hands back and looked at them.

 _Oh. Yeah. And without blood or fingerprints, they aren't going to be able to match crime scene evidence either. Our hair isn't regular hair either._

I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

 _Tabula Rasa. Not even my relatives or the criminals I'd associated with know who I am now!_

I did a little toe-heel tap dance bit with my right foot.

There was a cautious negative thought. I leaned over and picked up the marker and drew giant bowl on a fire.

 _Oh, yeah. Cauldron. They know. And my bank accounts might be traceable too, we'll have to empty them carefully._ My thoughts turned dark and painful. _I'll have to be careful how I visit Tim's grave too. It will certainly be watched._

I heard someone cough into a closed fist behind me, about ten feet away. By the sound of the cough, I could tell they smoked, and their heart rate was elevated. The resonance told me they were around a hundred kilos mass, and in fair condition. Their belt was too tight though - it was restricting their diaphragm.

As I turned around, I saw that one of the police officers was approaching me, slowly. He was holding both hands open, at his sides. He was carrying no weapons visibly, but I felt Wile E. calculating rapidly, comparing the uniform he was wearing to other nearby officers.

We turned, halfway towards the officer so we were facing the road. The officer to our left, the easel to the right. My right hand flipped the top page on the easel back and rapidly drew a stylized human butt with two pockets and a taser sticking out of the back right pocket.

My head swiveled to face the officer and I felt my right eyebrow raise several inches.

The officer grimaced and stopped walking, keeping his hands in view. Then he called out behind him in a language I didn't know. A moment later there was a response that came from a much older woman in uniform, watching from behind a barricade.

 _When did they set up all this stuff, Wile E.? Why didn't you tell me?_

I felt a mental shrug.

 _Fuck you too, Wile E. I'd like to know what's going on around me. Especially when there are a hundred people watching._

There was a sense of insincere apology.

The civilians were slowly being led away by more police officers.

 _Wile E. We aren't hurting cops. If they try to arrest us, let them. We'll play dumb and..._

There was an instant hackle-raising negation.

 _Fake it? Pretend?_

Wile E. really didn't like the idea of playing dumb, at all.

 _Trick them?_

The irritation faded to a suspicion, with an undertone of interest.

 _The only thing we can't do is tell them who I used to be, or where we got our powers. We've done nothing wrong that could possibly be serious._

There was a brief consideration, and then agreement.

Our right hand moved again, and an X appeared on the taser in the pocket. Then our head tilted as we stared at the officer.

The officer started talking. In English, thankfully. "You speak English?"

I shook my head and took control of the right hand, then wrote MUTE on the board.

The officer shook his head and called out. "Qu'est-ce que cela veut dire?"

Someone else who was looking at the easel with a small set of binoculars responded"Muet."

"You understand English?"

I nodded my head, and wrote YES on the board.

"Is that a costume?"

I wrote NO on the board.

"Someone is taking taser from my back pocket."

Another officer walked up slowly, hands in view, and picked the taser out of the back pocket of the officer talking to us. He held the taser with two fingers and slowly backed away.

I could smell the stink of fear in the air from many people.

HAVE I DONE SOMETHING ILLEGAL? I wrote on the easel.

"No" The officer said.

WHY SURROUNDED?

"Simurgh is coming. Many important people with her. Scientists. You are... strange? Dangerous? Come with us, go away?"

I LOOK LIKE WILE E. COYOTE AND WORRY YOU?

I couldn't help but giggle to myself, and laugh. My arms wrapped tightly around my chest, I laughed uncontrollably for several seconds, bending at the waist before standing straight again. Apparently, laughing was a human noise I could make.

Strangely enough, the fear scent got stronger.

The older woman in the back shouted out. "Nous avons le protectorat sur la conférence vidéo!"

The officer stepped to the side and slowly pointed me towards where the older woman was. I saw three young-looking officers moving a microphone on an adjustable stand, a camera on another stand, and a small TV on a cart. A fourth officer followed behind them, guiding the mass of cables and extension cords leading from the back of a van.

The officer that spoke to us beckoned. "Please, come talk to English-speaking hero cape."

I almost doubled over in pain as Wile E. got a clear look at a camera, a television, a boom microphone, and the inside of a communications equipment van, all at the same time.

 _I wailed internally. Aaagh! Stop that Wile E.!_

There was a sense of apology, and I felt the reverse engineering slow down dramatically. A moment later, as the officers moved around, Wiley started getting a clear view of all sorts of equipment inside vehicles, as well as guns, and radios.

The pain started to get worse. I held my head. _Slow down, dammit. It hurts!_

I got no response. I could feel Wile E reverse engineering entire vehicles, cellphones, electrical wiring. Transformers on power poles. My head turned and I saw a cell tower. The spike of pain from seeing _that_ knocked me to my knees.

I started smashing my head against the pavement. _Stop._ BASH. _Doing._ BASH. _This!_ BASH.

The pain from hitting my head against the pavement was a relief compared to what Wile E. was doing to my head as he tried to piece together the entire Swiss law enforcement communication network, with a side order of modern automobile and cell tower. The next time a woman tried to tell me I had no idea what childbirth felt like, I would laugh in her face. I felt like someone was pulling a string of bowling balls in one ear and out the other.

Apparently, my bashing our head against the ground was irritating Wile E., and interfering with his ability to concentrate. He took control of the body and stopped me, while projecting a stern disapproval, mixed with puzzled irritation. An admonishment, and then, all of a sudden, the pain started again. It was worse.

I immediately started bashing my head against the ground. Harder. The harder I hit my head, the less pain I was in from Wile E. turning my brain inside out. I couldn't even articulate thoughts anymore.

I stopped moving again. The pain stopped. I was on my hands and knees. There was a sensation of great disappointment.

 _One fucking thing at a time, Wile E. Unless our lives are in danger. From now on if you give me a headache I'm going to bash our head until you stop._

A deep mental sigh and agreement, and I felt the reverse engineering of everything around us starting again. I started to get twinges of pain.

 _Wile E._ I warned, getting ready to bash my head against the pavement some more. The pain eased off.

I looked up, to see all of the police officers hiding behind their cars. Trying to imagine what they had just seen, I could easily imagine their concern.

There was a woman on the television, looking away from us, offscreen. "Dammit Miss Militia, did you tell Richter about the sneezing powder?"

"The what?" A female voice called back, barely audible, even to my ears.

"Oh. Never mind." She turned to me. "Do you really expect me to fall for this? Who is this?" She turned her head to the side again. "Miss Militia, what's Eidolon doing right now?"

The same female voice responded, growing louder as she approached the microphone. "He's arranging for teleportation of more scientists to Switzerland. He just checked in from Sydney. Why? And what was that about sneezing powder?"

The woman on the screen looked at me quickly, then turned her head and watched offscreen nervously. "Come look at this, Miss Militia, and tell me what you think?" She pointed directly at me.

A few seconds later, a woman walked onscreen and stood behind the seated woman, looking at me. "Not funny, Mouse. I have work to do. And you will write up a report about what you did to Richter with the sneezing powder and why, so I can dock your pay and apologize to him after he DoSs our web page. Again." She turned and walked away.

 _Miss Militia and Mouse Protector. I'm talking to Miss Militia and Mouse Protector!_

I could feel Wile E. shaking his head mentally.

 _What?_

"Oh, for crissake. Are you going to say anything?" Mouse Protector demanded.

 _Damn, you're right. I'm not talking, am I?_

Wile E. laughed in my head and I stood our body up.

I turned behind us and grabbed the easel and pulled it closer to the video pickup. Making sure I wasn't blocking her view of it, I pointed at where I'd written MUTE earlier.

"Of course you are." Mouse Protector said, sarcastically. "Do you really expect me to believe you are a new cape who just happens to look exactly like one of the most famous cartoon characters of all time? You were just smashing your head against the concrete hard enough to damage the road. Was that trying to make me think you had cartoon physics durability?"

I looked at the ground, surprised. _Damn. I did tear up the road a bit there._

She narrowed her eyes at my reaction, then paused, thinking. "Let me guess. You have a power to summon Acme products?"

I couldn't resist. I turned the big marker in my hand and displayed the ACME lettering on the side of it. Then I looked at her and smiled, nodding rapidly.

Her eyes bugged out. "Oh, No, Eidolon, I tagged you earlier today. You are NOT getting away with this! I do NOT get pranked by the straight man!"

Mouse Protector disappeared.

We collapsed in laughter, Wile E. and I taking turns controlling the body as we rolled back and forth beating our fists on the ground when we were on our chest, and rapidly thumping our heels on the ground when we were on our backs.


	4. Chapter 4

As I appeared, Eidolon was staring directly at me.

 _I hate it when he does that. It's like he's got some sort of always-on sense of when people are watching him, and somehow my teleport tag counts._

"Yes, Mouse Protector? I assume it's important since I'm in the middle of a diplomatic mission?"

"I..." There were lots of people with calculators and pocket protectors near us. I looked at them, and back to Eidolon. "I can wait till you're done with these nice young men in their clean white coats."

 _I still can't believe he tried that, and it was so clumsy. It's not like I haven't tried to explain how to do a good practical joke to him a hundred times, but he always seems barely interested. And now he tries it and ignores everything I tried to teach him._

I crossed my arms and found a wall to lean against. To amuse myself while I waited for him to finish saying whatever he was saying to the geeks, I put my left hand in my pocket with the little remote control. Every time one of the guys and gals in lab coats looked at me, I made my helmet ears twitch and swivel to face them. I deadpanned and enjoyed their reactions.

 _God, the practical jokes I could pull on these guys. But nooo..._

Eidolon spoke into his cellphone. "Miss Militia, is the landing pad clear?"

After a pause. "She's here with me. Just arrived a few moments ago." Another pause. "Yes, we can wait a minute for you to get back to the landing pad." he turned to stare at me "to tell us if it's safe to create a teleport disk."

I winced. _Well, crap. I'll hear about this later. Why do they always stick me with the jobs that need me to stay in one place? You'd think that they would have learned by now. I can walk around and look Hero-ey just as good as Miss Militia can, and she stays in one place if you need her to!_

After a couple more minutes and a few more sentences spoken over the phone, (which I ignored because it's not polite to listen in on other people's conversations - NOT because I didn't want to hear Eidolon complain about me), a big blue oval formed. Eidolon started sending nervous scientists through.

When the lab coats were all through the portal, Eidolon turned to me. "Why did you leave your post?"

I pointed at him accusingly. "I figured out what you were doing with that fake new cape in Switzerland. I've told you so many times that you can't be obvious like that!"

Eidolon just stared at me for a moment, like I'd pissed in his corn flakes for real, and my blood ran cold. I've been afraid of people before. Siberian is a scary bitch, for example. She does weird shit to my power too. I tagged her once and when I tried to teleported to her later in the fight, I ended up inside a van about a block from the fight with some fat white guy that apparently lived in the van, from the smell.

But anyway, in that instant, I got the feeling that Eidolon was going to kill me. Silly, eh? No spider-sense here, not enough legs. Sometimes it's hard to read someone's expression through a mask, OK?

"Go on." He said, and I could tell he was thinking hard. Probably trying to figure out how I'd figured out what he did.

"Eidolon, I know I've told you that the best practical jokes always need to feel real at first, probably a hundred times. But the first time you try to pull a big practical joke, you try this? C'mon. Next time you want to try a practical joke, come to me and I'll help you set it up. I mean, a case 53 that looks like Wile E. Coyote, and has his powers too?" I shook my head slowly. "Too unreal. You tried too hard."

He visibly relaxed, which was a bit weird, but Eidolon gets uptight about the strangest things sometimes. "Miss Militia said the Swiss police are upset that you left them with a mentally unstable case 53. I think we need to go handle that, right now. After you." He pointed at the blue portal. It wasn't a suggestion.

 _Is he really trying to say he didn't do it? I can't think of anyone else who could manage something that complex, even though he was somewhere else. Well, maybe Nyx, but there weren't any dead people, so it probably wasn't her._

As I walked past him to the blue portal I kept talking. "Fine. You'll see. There's no way someone got that appearance and those powers. It's exactly like the cartoon character."

For the last couple steps before I walked through the teleporter, I thought to myself, _If he really didn't do it, I need to convince him to find out who did. Then figure out how they did it. It would absolutely rock to trick Narwhal into thinking she'd found a case 53 that manifested as a My Little Pony unicorn._


	5. Chapter 5

After about fifteen seconds of uncontrollable mirth, rolling around on the sidewalk, I heard Miss Militia's voice coming from the video conferencing setup. Barely audible. She wasn't in front of the screen. "Eidolon, you can create the teleport gate at the prearranged location, the landing pad is clear."

By the second word, my ears were swiveled at the audio source. By the fourth word, I was staring at the screen and starting to stand up. When sixth and seventh word were spoken, Wile E.'s brain was starting to spin up. I understood immediately that he was waiting for something, like an ambush predator.

 _Wile E. Please._

There was a sheepish agreement that _still_ felt a little insincere.

I moved close to the building that bordered the sidewalk, put both hands against the wall, and then carefully tapped my head against the stones. Once. A warning.

There was a sense of frustration and then reluctant agreement.

When the screen flashed blue a few seconds later, there was a massive spike of pain, but it immediately dropped to a bearable pressure with a sense of apology from Wile E. before I could complain, or start to beat my head against the wall.

I heard Miss Militia's voice again, closer. "I'm sorry. She had to leave. I am coming to talk to them now." Miss Militia sat down where Mouse Protector had been sitting, then stared at me. "If this is a practical joke, it is bad timing, and in a bad place."

I shook my head, and looked for my marker. It was laying, broken, on the ground where we had been rolling back and forth. There was a sigh in my head, a moment of concentration, and another marker appeared in my hand. I picked up the easel and flipped the first two sheets back to the first blank sheet.

NO JOKE

As I looked at Miss Militia, I could see she was looking at the marker in my hand. Her eyes traced to the broken marker, the damaged roadside, and then to the easel. Then she looked directly at me and rubbed her temples.

"I will operate under the assumption that this is not a joke." She stared at me over the scarf of stars and stripes. "I don't have authority to arrest you in Switzerland if this is a joke, but it will not be hard to arrange for an arrest. We are being recorded, and there are thirty police witnesses around you."

Wile E. was getting impatient.

 _Calm down, Wile E._ I projected mentally.

I underlined "NO JOKE"

"I saw you summon the marker." Her hand twisted minutely, and the green pen in her hand changed into a green stiletto, perfectly gripped by the new position of her hand.

Wile E. went nuts in my head. I collapsed on the ground due to the intensity of the pain, clutching my head.

I started beating my head on the ground, and Wile E. apologized after the second smash, reducing the head pain to an uncomfortable pressure again.

Miss Militia was staring at me, leaned back in the chair with the stiletto was twirling rapidly in her hand. "Seeing me reshape my weapon caused you that much pain?"

I nodded as I stood.

Miss Militia stared at me. "And yet what you do is a lot like what I can do, at first glance."

I started to nod, but Wile E. took control of our head and shook it back and forth violently.

Her hand changed its position, and I felt Wile E.'s mind starting to race. The stiletto changed into a green pistol, and there was a brief spike of pain, but not as bad as the first time.

Wile E. concentrated, and a huge, bright red revolver appeared in our hand. I heard a lot of people moving around nearby, a whole lot of clicking and clacking noises, and urgent phrases in languages I didn't know.

 _You just pulled a gun on about thirty officers,_ I yelled into my mind as I tried to drop the pistol, but couldn't.

Our head spun all the way around, strafing all of the nearby police with his vision. I felt the analysis, and then the lack of concern, followed by an internal shrug.

Miss Militia raised a radio in front of us and spoke into it. "He is reacting to me. Do not engage."

I realized that our head was spun full circle, and hadn't been turned back, so I took control and spun it back.

"Body control like that is definitely outside what I can do." Miss Militia muttered, barely loud enough for us to hear as she stared at us with slightly-wide eyes. "For once, I understand what Mouse Protector was thinking." After a pause, she spoke, louder. "It hurt you less when I changed my weapon the second time?"

I nodded, slowly.

Her hands shifted, and the green gun changed into a baseball bat. Wile E. barely blinked, though I felt his mental processes ramp up.

A moment later I felt Wile E. smile inside, mischievously. My finger tightened on the trigger of the pistol in my hand, and the big red pistol bucked, noiselessly ejecting a huge cloud of smoke.

There were a great many more loud noises from the nearby police and a lot of shouting.

 _WHAT are you doing Wile E.!_ I yelled in my head.

When the smoke cleared, there was a white flag extending from the end of the red pistol. On the white flag there was a picture of a green baseball bat.

Miss Militia was staring at us. She leaned forward and pressed a button I couldn't see, but I felt Wile E. constructing a model of the panel, based on the refracted light from the camera and the images reflected off Miss Militia's eyes.

I heard the click of a button and Miss Militia spoke. "Eidolon. Mouse Protector. I'm texting you a GPS coordinate. Please go there and gather a new cape, and bring them to our quarters here. Before he starts a firefight."

I heard a male voice respond over the intercom. Wile E. calculated the shape of the intercom speaker and the room that Eidolon was in, based on the echoes and sound waveforms. "I have more people to move, and I'm behind schedule _now_." There was a pause of about a second. "Are they being violent?"

Miss Militia looked at us and I shook my head violently. "No, Eidolon. Give me a moment please. Nobody in government or the research sector expects you to be on time. Don't worry about a couple minutes."

Eidolon responded. "One minute, then I have to go."

Miss Militia shook her head a little then looked at me with a small smile. "Put away the gun... What is your name?"

My hand flashed to the easel in a moment, before I could think, and I had already written the response before I turned my own head to look at it.

WILE E. COYOTE SUPRA GENIUS

Miss Militia slapped herself on the forehead. "That's a long name. Why don't we just try out 'Genius'?" She frowned. "Put away the gun." Her green baseball bat changed into a green pen.

I could feel a matter of grave importance being considered in my head.

 _Wile E. please put away the gun?_

Wile E. scratched out everything except 'GENIUS' on the line with our name, and nodded to Miss Militia, slowly.

I felt our body return to my control and leaned over to put the gun on the ground.

Before I could let it go, Wile E. realized what I was doing, and stood us back up, shaking our head.

Miss Militia's expression hardened. "I really have to insist. You're a new cape, Genius, and we don't have reason to distrust you, but we also have no reason to trust you." She paused a moment. "Refusing to stop openly carrying a weapon isn't going to help you avoid problems. I can't legally tell you what to do in Switzerland, but I can quickly find people who can. I'd rather not start escalating."

My eyes moved to the big red pistol, and my hands started moving. First I pushed the flag with the green bat picture back into the gun barrel. The barrel was next, it was pushed back into the revolver body. After that there was a series of fast motions, and a second later, the pistol disappeared, pressed between the index claws of our right and left hands.

We looked up at Miss Militia, who was staring at us. "Eidolon, Genius has disarmed himself... I think... Visibly at least." She paused, looking at my face. "I'm sorry. You are a he, right?"

I nodded, and grinned at her. Then I realized that I might not be male any longer. That thought was such a shock that both hands went to my crotch. There definitely wasn't anything there, where I expected it to be.

I was stunned. _What the fuck!_

Miss Militia's eyes got bigger. "Sorry, Genius, I didn't expect to create an identity crisis. Based on that reaction, you clearly were male though, so we'll go with that." She continued after I managed a weak nod. "Eidolon, can you just drop off Mouse Protector and have her escort Genius to us?"

"I will do that."

At the peripheral of my thoughts, I heard a female voice break in. Mouse Protector. "Wait. We're operating under the assumption that this really is a new cape and not someone's practical joke?"

Miss Militia thought for a moment. She then smiled before responding, while her eyes shifted to watch me. "Who better to spot a prank than a prankster? If they aren't what they are trying to say they are, I'm sure you'll figure it out before you get them back here."

There was a long moment of silence before Mouse Protector responded, in a huffy tone. "Fine."

I couldn't help but smile at that, a big grin. Then I realized how many sharp teeth I had and made the grin less big, so I could hide my teeth, and quickly wrote on the chalkboard.

SORRY ABOUT THE TEETH

Miss Militia released the intercom button and leaned back in her chair with a deep breath, her eyes never leaving me. "If this is a joke, you have my permission to keep going with it until I see you in person. There's an expression that Mouse Protector regularly uses but doesn't seem to understand. 'Payback is hell.'

I just smiled a little smile. Then I realized I was smiling less than fifteen seconds after discovering that I no longer had the royal scepter and jewels. _What in the hell is wrong with me?_

She paused. "You understand English, but according to the police, you don't seem to understand German or French." She said what sounded like two sentences in another language that I had absolutely no idea what it was. "Apparently you don't speak Kurdish or Arabic either." If you only speak English, there are only four countries you are likely to come from. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, or Australia."

I nodded, and wrote 'US' on the easel. Then, after a second I realized I needed to be a little more careful. I added a '?'

"You were a tourist then? Triggered in an accident?"

I just shrugged.

Miss Militia stared at me. "Case 53's frequently have amnesia. We might be able to help with that. We can at least grant provisional US citizenship with a green card either until we can prove who you were, or you can complete the immigration process."

I nodded, gratefully. There were holes all over the place in the idea of pretending to be an amnesiac, but I'd just have to try to avoid too many issues until I could get out from under the Protectorate's thumb.

 _Hell, what will I do after that? It might be a better gig to stay with the Protectorate?_ I knew some of the wards had committed worse crimes than I ever did, even if they figured out who I was. There had been a huge stink about that when I was in middle school. A lot of the original wards had been close to my age. Miss Militia and Mouse Protector had been two of them, actually, on the original Wards team.

I'd never committed crimes because I liked stealing or because I couldn't control myself. I just wanted a better life and crime seemed to be about the fastest way to get there from the trailer park. Sometimes Tim's enthusiasm for lawbreaking was contagious, I had to at least admit that, but I had always intended to go straight after I had a few million in the bank and could retire in Costa Rica or something.

Protectorate capes must make mad money. It would be stupid to pay people with cape powers wages like the near-slaves at Wally World.

"Genius. Mouse Protector and Eidolon will be there shortly. Let Mouse Protector lead you to the base of operations we have been granted here in Switzerland. We'll arrange for transport to the US when Eidolon has time.

My ears twitched and I heard Mouse Protector's voice. "There he is, in the middle of that ring of police cars!"

I turned and saw Eidolon flying closer, carrying Mouse Protector by her left arm about twenty feet above the rooftops. Eidolon was slowly shaking his head, and Mouse Protector was pointing at me with her right arm. I saw Mouse Protector quickly glance up at Eidolon while he was shaking his head, then she looked back to me, a small grin on her face.

Eidolon stopped shaking his head and stared at me, expressionless. After another couple seconds of flight, Mouse Protector slapped his wrist slightly while bucking her hips and legs to her right, my left.

Eidolon released her and she dropped about forty feet to the ground, and landed barely inside the circle of police cars, starting a rapid, tight roll.

I could feel Wile E. Calculating her trajectory and velocity, her muscle strength and flexibility. I could only stare at the absurd costume. It was one thing to see it in photos. It was another thing completely to see it in person. A skullcap helm with giant round black ears. Between the ears was a pink polka-dot bow that matched her pink polka-dot short sleeved dress over a black crew-necked long sleeve shirt. As she flipped over, I saw she was wearing white bloomer-style underwear with red hearts over her black tights. White gloves and pink high-heeled clogs rounded out her clothing.

Then, of course, there were the two daggers in sheaths on each hip, and the sword and shield on her back.

 _How do you even do acrobatics in an outfit like that?_ I thought to myself.

Wile E. replayed the video of her landing and flipping in my head.

 _Oh, shut up. Wait. Videographic memory?_

There was a clear sense of amusement and superiority from Wile E.

Mouse protector ended her roll about ten feet from us in a rolling kip-up and stopped about five feet from me. She was, maybe, five-foot two, and looked to be fairly stocky, muscular. Maybe a hundred thirty pounds if I had to guess. We just stared at each other, separated by five feet. Then I started laughing.

"What? You have a problem with my entrance?" She complained, staring, but she was smiling a little too, a quirky grin.

I pointed at her, and kept laughing. I couldn't help myself. I had never believed she really dressed up like that when she did her hero thing, I'd always thought it was for photo ops, or whatever. I hadn't seen the whole uniform when we video conferenced earlier.

She stomped one foot and sniffed the air. Then a second later she took two very rapid steps forward and grabbed my nose. "I, sir, am not the only one here who does not look like a serious cape. Your costume is also hilarious."

I controlled myself with an effort and began standing up straight.

As I was in the slow process of straightening up while trying to catch my breath, she pinched my nose, hard. I yelped, and felt Wile E. take control of our body. We pulled our nose out of her grasp and bit her forearm firmly, but made no effort to rip and tear. Wile E. growled, and I agreed with him.

She stared at me, deadly serious. I didn't release my grip, but I did swivel the ears to face her. And slightly twisted my head to stare at her. After a moment, she sighed.

In a patient, apologetic tone, Mouse Protector started speaking. "You feel like plastic. You don't smell like fur. But that was a real pain reaction if I've ever seen one. Let go of my arm, I won't do that again."

I tried to relax our jaws, but couldn't. _Let her go, Wile E._ I thought about it a second. _She was just performing an experiment to see if we could feel pain._

There was a moment of thought, and then a strong sense of approval.

A moment later, I was able to relax our jaws and let go of Mouse Protector's forearm. There was no blood, fortunately.

Mouse Protector took a step back, thoughtfully, rubbing her right arm with her left hand absently. "Felt like real jaws, too." Her eyes glittered. "I still don't believe it. You're some sort of body morph working with a tinker. Someone new, who actually has a sense of humor."

I twirled my Acme marker, and pointed at the name on the easel, tapping each part of the name.

WILE

E.

COYOTE

SUPRA

GENIUS

I circled 'Genius'.

She put her hands on her hips and said "Prove it?"

 _I've been trying?_

I wrote on the easel.

HOW?

She looked up at me. "You can do the things from the cartoon show, right?"

Wile E. nodded our head.

A small, predatory smile formed on her face.

 _Oh, shit._

"Eidolon carried me here. You'll carry me back, on rocket-propelled roller skates."

There was a very strong sense of mischief and evil grins.

 _No, nono! Dammit don't encourage him!_ I tried to take control of our body to make some sort of 'no' gesture, but Wiley had me locked out.

I felt a strong sensation of concentration for a few seconds, and then there was a shadow on the ground next to us. The shadow quickly grew larger, and a large crate marked 'ACME' slammed into the road about a second later. It had a tiny, umbrella-sized parachute on it.

Mouse Protector had seen the shadow and didn't seem upset when the crate hit the ground. She scanned the sky and then the box, biting her lip a little, then stared at me.

Wile E. had already summoned a crowbar out of thin air and was rapidly popping the top off the crate. He tossed the crowbar and the top of the crate to one side, then tossed two things at Mouse Protector, who caught them easily. Aviators goggles, and a facemask.

"Seriously?" Mouse protector stared between the goggles and the facemask. "I can maybe see the goggles, but a facemask? I can keep my mouth shut."

I heard a wild burst of laughter from the videoconferencing equipment. Miss Militia was apparently still watching and listening.

"That was uncalled for, Miss Militia." Mouse Protector pointed at the video equipment with a bit of a pout.

The laughter got a little louder then stopped with a couple sniffles.

Mouse protector mumbled "whatever" and put the goggles and facemask on.

As Wile E. pulled the next piece of equipment out of the box, I started screaming at him. _You're going to get us killed, I know it!_

I could feel him chuckling in my head. He was chuckling aloud as well.

Mouse Protector was staring at the gear he'd pulled out of the box. An oxygen tank on a sturdy leather backpack harness, a tube hanging off the top, clearly intended to attach to the mask.

"You've got to be shitting me." Her eyes shifted towards the video equipment where I heard more laughter. Her eyes bored into my eyes. "I call bullshit. But I'll wear it anyway. You can't scare me."

There was a little touch of anger, followed by our eyes narrowing. Then a great sense of anticipation.

 _Ohgod. What have you said! What have you done! You might be an adrenaline junkie but I know he's going to kill us both!_

 _Wile E. Don't do this. Please!_

I was ignored. I knew I was going to be ignored. I could only watch in horror as Wile E. helped Mouse Protector into the oxygen canister harness, checking all the straps carefully.

Next, he pulled a pair of roller skates out of the box, and put them on. Somehow, they fit over the giant sneakers we were wearing. We already had the goggles on that we had summoned earlier to see through the black egg field.

 _Don't we need oxygen too?_ I asked, fearfully.

I felt the negative answer projected from Wile E.

Finally, we leaned over the edge of the Acme box and reached down to the bottom to grab a little handheld device with a zigzag wire antenna and a big dial with several positions marked by images.

Mouse Protector was staring at the roller skates. "I don't see rockets." She looked up at us with a grin.

Deep inside me I felt a sense of immense satisfaction and mischief as we held the dial out. Wile E. held it in such a way that Mouse Protector and I could both see it. There was a set of on/off buttons below the dial. The 'OFF' button was depressed.

Wile E. touched the dial and started turning it, looking behind us. As he turned the knob from 'turtle' to 'grandma' a small pair of soda-can sized rockets popped out of the heel of the roller skates. When he switched from 'grandma' to 'motorcycle' the rockets shrunk a bit, then popped out, expanding to the size of two liter bottles.

Mouse Protector's eyes were getting big and she was going a bit pale. She was staring at the dial.

Wile E. changed the setting from 'motorcycle' to 'airplane.' The rockets shrunk a bit, then popped out to the size of barrels, simultaneously shifting to the outsides of our feet, instead of directly behind us.

We looked at Mouse Protector, and tilted our head. Then looked down at the controller. There were three settings left. 'rocket ship' 'screaming man' and the last setting, with a little locking mechanism that had to be pushed down with one finger while the dial was moved to that position.

Looking up at us, still biting her lip a bit, Mouse Protector spoke in a slightly shaky voice. "You're bluffing. Do your worst."

More gleeful mental cackling and the sense of mustache-twirling.

 _You don't have a mustache,_ I complained.

There was a irritated thought, briefly, but the gleeful mustache-twirling sensation continued, barely interrupted.

I felt us grinning big enough to show some teeth. After a brief concentration, a harness appeared on our body, with stirrups at our hips and many straps, each color coded to match straps on Mouse Protector's backpack harness.

Wile E. pressed the safety catch on the dial and turned the dial all the way to 'wet pants'. To our sides, the rockets expanded from barrel size through two transitions, ending up with each rocket being the size of a cargo van.

There was a crash as one of the resizing rockets smashed the easel and videoconferencing equipment.

 _We're going to die._

"I disbelieve." Mouse Protector muttered, then opened her eyes again.

Wile E. patted our back, and pointed at her shoes, then at the stirrups.

Shaking her head, she flipped over us and climbed onto our back, putting her shoes into the stirrups. "Match the colors on the harnesses?"

We nodded. Seconds later, Wile E was carefully checking the harnesses, turning our head completely around to look at Mouse Protector. When our head turned around to face her, the expression on her face was almost horrified as she jerked back against the harness a bit, but she quickly recovered.

After the harness was checked and we got turned around facing forward again, Wile E shook out our shoulders and cracked our knuckles. He pulled the controller out of our pocket again.

Mouse Protector leaned forward, and whispered into our ear in a worried voice. "Is there any chance you're about to kill us?"

 _Yes. We're D. E. A. D. dead._ I tried to scream mentally at Mouse Protector, because Wile E. was clearly not listening.

Wile E. shook our head, and then put his finger on the controller's "ON" button. He handed it over our head and Mouse Protector took it from us.

Leaning forward, Wile E grabbed two heavy handgrips, one on each of the rockets. We were now connected to each rocket by one hand and one foot.

I heard Mouse Protector mutter the beginnings of the Lord's Prayer and then there was a *click*. A deep coughing noise commenced as the rockets slowly came to life, shaking violently. We bounced on the pavement a couple times, and Wile E. punched the left rocket, quickly putting his left hand back on the handgrip.

The bouncing stopped. The sounds from the rockets got louder, and more high-pitched. Our body tensed, and we leaned a little more forward.

I tried to close our eyes, but couldn't.

Wile E. started laughing maniacally as we started slowly moving forward in fits and starts.

I could barely hear her over the rockets, despite Mouse Protector shrieking in our ear. "Genius! The 'OFF' button isn't working!"


	6. Chapter 6

Based on the yelling coming from Mouse Protector, she had begun to realize she'd probably started something that would kill us both. Wile E. ducked even lower, and stuck our head straight out. I felt him making air resistance calculations based on our bodies.

I felt our face frown as Wile E. looked down the street at several police officers who were staring at us from behind cars that were blocking our path down the road. Wile E. pointed his right hand at the officers we could see, and made brushing-off motions in each direction.

Two officers stared for a moment, jumped in the patrol cars, and then rapidly drove them down the street, backwards, clearing our path. Wile E. gave the remaining officers we could see a big thumbs-up and a huge grin before putting his right hand back on the right side rocket handle.

There was a growing irritation in my head. Wile E. was trying to calculate for Mouse Protector's wind resistance as well, but she kept changing her wind resistance profile as she beat us around the head and shoulders with the controller device.

Finally, I felt a sense of satisfaction and a slightly different set of calculations being made.

Our torso was now nearly parallel to the ground. Our hands and wrists were roughly level with our chest.

Wile E. was mentally wincing with each blow from Mouse Protector. She was stronger than us by a great deal, and it didn't feel like she was holding much back.

"Genius"

*smack* _OW!_ She hit our left shoulder blade with the controller.

"Fix"

*smack* _OW!_ She hit us in the right upper arm with the controller.

"This"

*smack* _OW!_ I could feel Wile E tensing and getting ready as the blow to the back of our head landed

"Thing!"

As Mouse Protector's hand holding the controller drew back towards the top of the predicted arc, I felt our wrists both twist at the same time. The rockets stopped idling.

 _Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!_ I screamed as the buildings around us disappeared in a streak of grey.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!" Mouse protector screamed as she dropped the controller and lunged forward to grab part of us to hold onto.

The sound of the jet engines warming up shifted into a volume that went beyond hearing. The engines were now beating us to death with vibrations so powerful that our ears simply couldn't register the energy as noise.

I blacked out. Or I thought I blacked out. Then I realized that I was still barely able to hear Mouse Protector screaming something that sounded like "You insane bastard!" in our ear. She had wrapped her arms around our head and her legs around our torso. It felt like she was squeezing us like a grape.

Wile E. felt smug in my head as he verified his aerodynamic profiles - while flying blind. In his mind I could feel him calculating trajectories based on thrust and wind resistance.

I felt us starting to angle upward, and could feel the air around us warming up. A few seconds later, the air started to cool down. Then it started to get really cold, and the air stopped blowing so hard against us. The sounds of the rockets faded to almost nothing.

Mouse Protector started to shiver uncontrollably. It felt like her goggles and facemask were pressed against the back of our head. After a few seconds of everything continuing to grow colder, she spoke. "It's too cold. Even if this isn't Hell, we should be burning to death. Is it safe to open my eyes?"

There was a huge sense of anticipation in Wile E.

I shook my head. I was fairly sure I didn't want to know where we were. Wile E. was far too happy with himself.

She gripped tighter, and it _hurt._ "Saint Peter will understand if I kill you, I'm sure he will."

 _She's probably right_ , I said, internally to my head-mate.

There was a cacophony of cackling laughter echoing through my head in response.

I still couldn't see anything through Mouse Protector's arms, and it was getting colder, fast. Our right hand released the right rocket's handle and tapped against Mouse Protector's arms insistently.

"What. Don't. I'm not letting go." She was starting to shiver more uncontrollably.

The sense of expectation grew more intense. The arm-tapping continued.

"What do you want?" She paused, and then spoke quickly. "Are we there yet?"

 _You haven't told us where to go yet!_ I yelled at her, but of course it came out as "Yipyip."

She relaxed a little bit, and loosened her arms.

As her arms pulled away, I saw someone in a really bulky-looking white tech suit of some sort flying in front of a metallic structure with lots of solar panels. He was holding both of his arms pointing directly towards us and waving his hands enthusiastically.

I waved at him in a big, friendly wave, and felt Mouse Protector waving as well. He continued to make lots of slow waving hand motions, pointing to his left like a traffic cop.

I looked to our right, his left, and saw a weird sight. Everything I could see was blue and white, and black around the edges.

Mouse protector slammed into my back and crushed me with her arms and legs so hard that I felt the shape of my body change. "Oshit. Oshit. Oshit. That's the Space Station. Down. Down Now. This instant." She slapped my head. "We're not going down yet."

I felt a Wile E. concentrating, briefly. A sign appeared in our right hand, but I couldn't read it. Wile E. tapped Mouse Protector's head lightly with the sign.

"I'm not opening my eyes."

He tapped her head again.

"No. We aren't going down. I know what down feels like."

One more tap on her head and I felt her right arm loosen from our torso and grab our right wrist. She twisted our wrist, a little painfully, so she could read the sign, and when she did so, I could also read the sign.

"SCARED YET?"

She let go of our right wrist and slapped us in the back of the head, but not hard. "You cheeky bastard. I've been on bumper boat rides worse than this." She immediately latched both arms and both legs onto us, hard.

 _The correct answer is YES!_ I screamed mentally, but of course it was no use. I wanted to strangle her.

There was a very brief moment of cold anger in my head, which scared me.

 _No suicide revenge tactics please, Wile E.?_ I begged mentally.

There was a mental snort and a clear sense of negation, and then several seconds of furiously rapid thought. Wile E. threw the 'SCARED YET' sign away from us like a javelin.

I watched the sign fall towards the Earth. It began to glow, slightly, after a few seconds.

During those few seconds, Wile E had been concentrating. The concentration stopped, but I couldn't see anything new.

Mouse Protector threw gasoline on the fire. "I'm getting bored. Do you think you can scare me by just keeping me in orbit? I can teleport any time I want to." Her arms didn't loosen at all, which told me that despite her actions indicating otherwise, she did, in fact, have some sort of sense of self-preservation.

Our right arm slowly moved, obviously intended to be noticed, and pressed a spot next to the right rocket handle. A panel slowly opened. The sliding panel was letting us see the bottom first, then scrolling up.

I felt Mouse Protector's body shift as she moved her head to read the panel.

'TIMER' appeared first. Then 'ACTIVATION'. A moment later, I read 'AFTERBURNER'.

A green line appeared a short time later, above 'AFTERBURNER'. The line was growing shorter, rapidly.

I just stared dully at the panel. It didn't feel like I had any fear left. _Afterburner activation timer? Wile E. Is this really necessary?_

There was a strong sense of hell yes.

I could barely hear Mouse Protector speaking in a very small voice as she dug her face between my shoulder blades. "Eep."

**

I followed Mouse Protector as she staggered in front of me, kicking aside a piece of rubble that we'd thrown up when we trenched the runway. She was walking towards a small airplane hangar with an attached brick building. I saw someone that looked like Miss Militia standing outside the doorway of the brick building. In the doorway itself, behind the woman, I saw a man who I didn't know, taking pictures of the rockets, and/or me and Mouse Protector.

Mouse Protector gave the man with the camera a one-finger salute. I barely heard her mutter under her breath. "Enjoy it while you can, Richter."

I looked back at the two TNT-red rockets. They were still burning in a few places.

 _They aren't going to blow up, are they?_

Wiley flashed an image of an empty fuel gage in my mind.

 _OK._

I continued lazily rolling back and forth on the roller skates behind Mouse Protector, dodging rubble. Her pink and white polka-dotted dress was tattered and burnt from re-entry and exposure to the fires on the rockets. She had lost her helmet on the ride. There were holes in her tights and bloomers, but nothing too embarrassing. If there hadn't been a scorched sports bra under her turtleneck, she would either be walking with arms crossed or flaunting what she had up top for all the world to see.

My hoodie and sweatpants were made of much flimsier materials and had completely disintegrated in flight - I was wearing nothing but my fur. Or whatever it was that covered me and looked like plastic fur.

Wile E. was howling hysterically in our head as we watched her stumble on her one remaining clog, and break it's heel. With a single motion of her hand and arm as she hopped, her clog came off of her foot and streaked past my head at _maybe_ six inches from my ear. There was a loud clank behind us as the clog hit one of the rockets. I flinched. Wile E. started laughing at me.

Without looking directly at me or saying anything, Mouse Protector continued walking towards the brick building. She removed her goggles and face mask, simply dropping them on the ground. Then she shrugged out of the oxygen tank, which clanged loudly as it bounced on the ground.

Miss Militia had an enormous smile on her face, and started to say something.

Mouse Protector raised her right hand up almost too quickly to see, holding it out between her and Miss Militia with index finger and thumb extended, but separated by about an inch. "Say one word, and I'll pinch your head, MM"

Miss Militia smiled hugely, and then walked back into the building, snorting and shaking like she was about to fall apart.

Richter spoke, "So, what's the verdict, Mouse?" He moved to fully block the doorway while clicking more photos of Mouse Protector giving him the bird. I recognized the brand and model of his camera. Tim and I had stolen a couple just like it not more than a few months ago from a camera shop, on his second week back from prison, before we'd started the jewelry store heists.

 _That's a really high-end digital camera. Why am I not writhing on the ground right now?_ I thought at Wile E.

Wile E. sent me a bored thought followed by an image of about eight different cameras that he'd seen earlier in the day.

Mouse protector sighed and ran her hands through her knotted hair as she walked. "He's legit. Way too much bullshit tinker physics or cartoon physics or whatever to be fake. Doesn't match any tinker profile I know of. He stayed mute the whole time, too." Her voice got very serious and she spoke loudly, almost yelling into the building. "There _better_ be hot water!"

An evil female cackle erupted from inside the building.

"Not Funny, MM." Mouse Protector complained, plaintively.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Wile E. seemed a little confused. _I'll explain it later, Wile E._

Mouse Protector shot me an annoyed look. I looked away from her and whistled innocently as I roller skated around in a circle a few feet behind her, with my hands clasped behind my back.

I heard Miss Militia call out again from inside the building. "You could have just teleported back, you know."

Mouse Protector play-pummeled Richter in the lower ribs with alternating taps of her fists until he backed out of the doorway with a chuckle. Then she turned towards me until I could see her right eye as she replied to Miss Militia.

"No, I couldn't. Then he would have won."


	7. Chapter 7

_Wile E. Lose the roller skates, please?_

The skates poofed and I stumbled and almost fell as my feet hit the ground. My Cauldron-issue sneakers were just as gone as the rest of my clothing. I shook my head.

 _It's not like we're going to be able to hide around people with our nose and feet anyway, even if we could hide our fur._ I thought to myself. Wile E. agreed with me.

I could hear the sounds of very high speed motors and smell ozone as I approached the door. Even without being able to see anything, visions of rectifiers, motors, and transformers were dancing in my head like sugar-plums in the heads of children on the night before Christmas.

I stopped walking towards the door. _Wile E. we know they have computers in there._

There was a sense of drooling and rapid head-nodding from my head-partner.

 _It probably wouldn't be a good thing for me, as a guest, to beat a hole in their floor with our head while trying to keep you from exploding my brain. Do you agree?_

He was trying to agree, but I could feel his internal conflict.

 _What would Bugs Bunny do?_ I wondered. Then it hit me. _They may be willing to share resources with us if we aren't unnecessarily destructive._

Our head swiveled to look at the two hundred feet of trenched runway and the burning rockets. There was a sensation of raised eyebrows.

 _Good point. It would probably be good for us to clean that up, when we have time._

Confusion. Extreme confusion. I didn't understand it.

 _How are you confused? You are always figuring out exactly how everything fits together, including the tools required to manufacture things. You have to understand that it takes time and manpower to..._

There was a sense of shock from Wile E, and I felt him shudder and begin to review and reconsider _everything_ we had seen up to that point. This time around, his analysis went deeper, and I saw equations considering human labor hours and time draw themselves on a mental blackboard. There was a great deal of analysis of human skeletal and muscular activity we'd seen. Assembly line scheduling theory. Storage and inventory. Regional vs. remote raw material acquisition. Hundreds of thousands of equations raced across my mind at an accelerating rate.

I don't even remember feeling pain.

**

There was a poke at my hip. It didn't hurt, but...

 _Why was I asleep?_

I got a very strong impression of Wile E. whistled innocently.

 _I'm getting very tired of this, Wile E.,_ I shot at him, angrily.

He at least had the decency to feel embarrassed.

I turned my head and saw Miss Militia standing mostly sheltered in the doorway of the green building.

She poked me with a long green stick, again. "Are you OK?"

I nodded and slowly stood. At least my headaches ended immediately when my head-mate stopped trying to turn my brain to mush.

Miss Militia was frowning a bit. She looked at the rocket wreck. "You were out for about three seconds, I think. I heard you hit the ground and barely had time to get to the door and tap you before you woke. You may have pushed yourself too hard?"

I started to nod. Wiley E. stopped our head-nodding and started head-shaking.

I siezed control and stopped the head-shaking. _Maybe YOU didn't push yourself too hard, but you damn well pushed ME too hard, or we wouldn't have collapsed, now would we?_ I yelled into my head.

After a moment, I was able to start nodding again.

I looked up and saw Miss Militia looking at us strangely. I gave her a thumbs-up.

A second later, her blank expression turned into a hesitant smile. "Come inside and rest. No using your powers for a while, OK? We have paper and things to write with"

 _Yup, she things we're batshit crazy. Thanks, Wile E._

I nodded again and gave another heads up, then started walking towards the door. The visions of electronic parts started dancing through my head again.

"Do you need help walking?"

My balance seemed good. I shook my head.

There was a window air conditioner in the window next to the door. We isolated all of its components, considered all of its energy outputs and subtracted them from the environment. Solar interference was removed. The sounds of Miss Militia moving and our body moving were removed. The simplified energy environment indicated a great number of high velocity fans in the building, as well as running water. Once the fans and water sounds were properly isolated, the echoes and sound waveforms were calculated.

By the time we stepped into the doorway, I already knew what the room would be shaped like, and where the furniture was. This room just had a couple desks with office computers on them, a couple couches, and a cheap TV with, of all things, a VCR on it.

Wile E.'s attention barely blipped as we saw the computers. I felt him performing comparative analysis with the computers he had seen in the police autos and communications van. Nothing exciting about these computers, which was a testament to how old they were if the police had more advanced computers.

Still, when our head scanned over the VCR with a couple tapes laying on top, I stumbled and nearly fell. Wile E. had apparently not seen magnetic tape data storage equipment yet.

 _Stop that!_ I yelled at him as the spike of pain rapidly diminished.

There was a sense of halfhearted apology and concentration.

I sighed and was very glad that the sixty or seventy small fans we could hear in the same room as Richter weren't visible to us. Wile E. could tell they were computers but with the door closed he wasn't able to rapidly analyze them. He was slowly adding data to their potential designs though, as we collected more data about the building electrical system.

 _The more computers there are in a single room, the more complicated the system is. I'm glad I can't..._

Wiley had taken control of our body and was walking towards the door we knew Richter was behind.

 _No. Absolutely not, Wile E. Remember, we're guests._ I was able to stop our forward motion.

Miss Militia was watching us closely, with her right hand held behind her back.

Wile E. started to calculate.

 _Yes, Wile E. she's holding a weapon. That's her power, she knows nothing about us, and we were about to do something very rude and potentially threatening._

There was a sense of being startled as Wile E. drew an image of the heavy pistol behind Miss Militia's back, gathered from reflections from the television, windows, computer monitors, and the shiny surfaces of the overhead tube lights.

 _Yes, Wile E. I can sometimes think faster than you when it comes to people._

Miss Militia caught my eye and cocked her head towards a small kitchen area with a little sturdy table. "Let's talk."

I nodded, and walked over, sitting in a chair that gave me a view of the room, and turning the chair so I couldn't see out the window next to us. Wile E. still hadn't seen an airplane yet, and this was an airport.

She tossed a notebook and a pen at us, and Wile E. caught them before I'd even recognized they had been thrown.

I stared at her, irritated. She could have just handed them to us.

"You are quite an odd fellow, you know? So many conflicting reactions. Like just now. You didn't even flinch when I threw the pad and pen at you, but stared at me like I had startled you. I've asked you about your powers twice now, and gotten two responses once, and three the second time. Confident, yet conflicted responses." Her face hardened a little. "I would like to have a candid discussion with you. Are you able to do that?"

I raised my hands and kneaded the sides of my forehead with my knuckles as I thought.

 _Wile E. please, please let me do all the communicating here, unless I ask for help from you?_

There was a guarded agreement.

 _At least for now?_

A sense of questioning.

 _Thirty minutes?_

There was a mental suggestion of a solid nod, followed by Wile E.'s mental presence receding slightly. I got the sensation of a timer ticking down.

I leaned forward. And wrote.

 **Yes**

Miss Militia looked at me, hard. "Mouse, for all her strangeness is very good at spotting tricks and lies. She vouches for you, and from what we've seen so far, I have no reason to doubt that you have a power set that is much like the cartoon character you look like. I'm going to ask anyway though, just to get it on the record. Yes, or no. Are either your powers or your appearance false?"

 _On the record?_

Wile E. caught that thought and moments later we waved at the computer with the active web camera pointed at the table.

Richter laughed from the other room.

 _Stop that, You agreed!_ I grumbled at my head-mate, mentally.

A sense of laughter and mostly-sincere apology rolled out of the mental landscape.

I wrote on the pad.

 **Powers and appearance real. No jokes. No fakes.**

Miss Militia was apparently able to read upside-down, at least a little. "So, it's pretty clear you have cartoon physics durability, which could be an amazing power all by itself in some scenarios, but what has the PRT most interested in you is your other abilities. You summoned an easel, two markers, a large pistol, a crowbar, and a large box of various equipment out of thin air in the space of a couple minutes. Additionally, you adjusted the pistol to allow it to respond to me by shooting out a flag with a baseball bat on it. Your power to create requires no tools, is extremely rapid, and configurable on the fly. In several ways, it seems to be a lot like my power, but more versatile. It also seems to be quite a bit more chaotic - what you create seems less realistic. Finally, it also apparently stays in existence after creation unless you intentionally make it disappear."

I started to write, and she put her hand gently on mine. "Wait a moment."

Putting the pen down, I nodded.

She continued. "Your power assessment is _secondary_." She stared at me. "You also had the opportunity to harm quite a few people due to carelessness, but did not. On at least one occasion you intentionally warned people out of the way. Then you and Mouse went on that insane ride that had every national government with missile defense systems screaming at us for answers." Her mouth quirked. "The camera in Mouse's helmet gave us enough data to keep them from trying to shoot you out of the sky with antimissiles and particle cannons."

I picked up the pen and wrote.

 **Sorry**

"Being a bit juvenile from time to time is expected at your age. Mouse is older, but not much older."

 _At my age? How does she know how old I am?_

I felt my eyes squint as I looked at her.

She stared at me and then took a deep breath. "Mouse also has... metabolic issues that make it damn near impossible for her to be calm and relaxed for more than a few minutes at a time. Think of it as ADHD driven by a superhuman metabolism and nervous system." She sighed. "Mouse can sometimes go hours on a simple task, if she's interested in it, and barely move a muscle. If you ever see footage of her stalking someone on patrol, she's frighteningly patient. When it's not something she really enjoys doing, a real fight, or a stalking, she's completely irrepressible and the more we try to calm or restrain her, the worse she gets."

Her fingers tapped a green pen on the tabletop. "We expect chaos from her. What she does in the field on legitimate business makes up for the shenanigans, normally. When it doesn't, there's community service and docked pay. Penalties don't stop her, but they do take the edge off her eagerness to cause havoc, giving us a little time between episodes."

I wasn't sure where this was going. _Why are we discussing Mouse so in depth?_

Wile E. sent me a shrugging sensation.

 _That was rhetorical, Wile E._

I just sketched a ' **?** ' on the pad.

Miss Militia sighed. "This is a lot easier with people that can talk, and who have human expressions to read. Sorry." She slowly reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a black rectangle and tossed it in front of me.

"Capes generally don't try to actively seek out secret identities. Civil authorities, on the other hand, do. You left a duffel bag with clothing and ID in it at the scene of your peaceful standoff with the Swiss police. They charged you with disorderly conduct and public hazard, but will not press charges, provided that you stay with the PRT contingent while we are here in Switzerland, and return with us to the United States when we leave."

I flipped over the black square, knowing exactly what I was going to see.

My face looked up at me from the clear plastic covering the driver's license. My fake ID. Jacob Dennison. It was still a lead for them.

Miss Militia stared at me.

I tried to stare at the image like I was seeing it for the first time, and after a second I scratched another word on the pad.

 **Me?**

Miss Militia smiled a tight smile. "We can find a place for you if you end up being like Mouse, which seems like a distinct possibility. We'd far rather be able to be more flexible. There are teams with members that might actually come to blows with capes like Mouse if they were forced to work together. You're too old for the Wards program, but there have been quite a few criminal capes with records much worse than yours that have, ah, switched sides."

 _Wait, what? Did I miss something? The cover ID has no arrest record._

Miss Militia tapped the wallet. "The Swiss ran your clothes and other evidence from your encounter through a DNA sniffer and chemical analyzer, Willie. You might not match your DNA profile now, but your clothes had DNA on it, and it matched Willie Davis, who is currently in a fair amount of legal trouble in the US."

 _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ I shook my head. _Need to try and bluff through this._

 **NOT ME!** I wrote on the pad.

Miss Militia got an irritated look on her face. "How do you know?" She paused to make sure I realized I'd screwed up my story already. "You claim to be an amnesiac. That's a really hard claim to make stick if you really aren't. There are capes that can detect lies with certainty. Some of them are officers of the court, and their sworn testimony is admissible as evidence."

My fists tightened, but I relaxed them.

Wile E. was watching very, very quietly.

 _Don't you dare do a damn thing!_ I shot at him.

Miss Militia looked at me, and shook her head slowly. "If you aren't Willie Davis, you might be persecuted for his disappearance. How did his clothing, with traces of his blood and your metastable synthetic fur in it, end up in Switzerland, four hours after the last time he was seen in the United States? How were you in possession of it? A sufficient case might be made to prove you to be an accomplice in his disappearance. A sufficiently bloodthirsty district attorney might even try to persecute you for Willie's death, if he doesn't resurface in a few months."

I put both hands on the edge of the table and froze on the edge of pushing the table away from me into Miss Militia and jumping out the window.

Miss Militia just stared at me, her hands were now out of my sight under the table. I hadn't even seen her move them.

Wile E. helpfully provided me with a short clip showing Miss Militia's hands moving under the table at the same time as mine moved to the table edge. I shot an annoyed thought at him and he cackled back at me.

 _Don't make this any worse than it is,_ I thought to myself as I realized I was trapped. I might be able to fight my way out, but I might not. Wile E. had been afraid of at least one weapon that had been pointed at us recently. Miss Militia could make any weapon she could carry, and probably already had something created in her hands, ready to blow a hole in me.

Wile E. was nodding in my head. Miss Militia had something big and boxy in her hands, pointed at us under the table. Wile E. was both irritated and worried that he couldn't tell what it could do.

She might be bluffing, but might not. She had at least ten years more experience as a cape than me. She had fought Behemoth and Leviathan and I'd gone on a single rocket ride. Using deadly force against her was completely out of the question. Even if I thought I could manage it, the thought of killing someone was something I'd never been able to stomach.

My shoulders slumped. I wrote on the pad.

 **Fine. I'm Willie. What happens now?**

As I put my wrists together and laid them on the table so she could cuff me, Miss Militia slapped my hands away gently. Her weapon was a pen again.

"I'll probably catch a little flak for it, but for now, let's just talk about your powers. Why do you spasm in pain sometimes, and what it the purpose of beating your head after you have a pain spasm?"


	8. Chapter 8

_How in the hell do I explain_ _ **you**_ _without them wanting to throw me straight into the nearest padded cell?_

There was a sensation of shrugging, and an image of a clock with about twenty-five minutes on it.

 _We don't even know how you work, or what you are._

Another mental shrug.

 _You have my permission to alert me, mentally, if I say anything that you know is wrong._

A raised eyebrow.

I laughed internally at Wile E. and he seemed to be satisfied.

Miss Militia was watching me, closely. It was actually pretty annoying, but I guess I could understand her concern.

I started writing.

 **Pain comes from seeing new technologies.**

 **The more complex they are, the more painful.**

 **Repeat exposure or more advanced versions of the same technology cause less pain.**

"What caused you to collapse when I changed my pen to a stiletto, earlier?"

 _I... Wile E. can you explain that in a written sentence?_ I sent into my mind.

There was a mental nod, so I gave him control, and he quickly wrote a response.

 **WTF physics.**

She looked at the paper and then back at me, with a strange look of very intent scrutiny. "So, do you understand how I do this now?" She changed the pen into a stiletto again. I felt Wile E. shrink back mentally, but the pain wasn't significant.

Wile E. sent me a strong impression that he was shaking his head violently.

 **No, but it doesn't bother him much anymore.**

"Him?" Miss Militia frowned.

 _Fuck. I'm an idiot._

Wile E. cackled in the recesses of my mind.

"That would certainly help explain some of your less rational actions." She raised a finger. "Multiple personality disorders are not unheard of with capes. Sometimes it's a coping mechanism that develops over time. Other times it seems to be a side effect of the power. Sometimes it existed before the trigger."

 **I was sane before this.**

Wile E. sent me a raised eyebrow feeling.

 _Fuck off_ , I shot back, only to hear mad laughter echo loudly through my skull.

 **I think I'm still sane. Mostly.**

"So, you are in conflict with an alternate personality in your head. Does it ever have control over your actions?" More intent scrutiny.

 **Yes. Sometimes.**

"Does it just happen randomly, or is it triggered by events?"

I thought about it. There actually was a pattern there.

 **Events. When something is important, we fight. The one that wants it most gets control.**

I could feel Wile E. considering that statement very closely, with a sense of tentative agreement.

"Interesting." Miss Militia steepled her fingers. "Have I been speaking with Willie for the last couple minutes?

 **Yes. Mostly.**

"Except for here?" She tapped her stiletto where Wile E. had written ' **WTF Physics.** '

I stared at her. _How in the hell did you guess that?_ I thought at her.

"I'll take that as a yes." She chuckled. "More precise handwriting. The speed that you wrote was also much greater. I've done a lot of new cape interviews and I'm pretty good at noticing things."

"So, why did you collapse outside the building a couple minutes ago? What did you see? Or did you just collapse from mental exhaustion?" She tilted her head a bit. "You aren't acting tired now."

 **Hard to explain.**

"I have time. Mouse and I are here mainly to offer support for Richter and Eidolon. Mostly Richter. He's running a small server farm and creating custom code for interdisciplinary analysis for the scientists trying to talk to Simurgh. Eidolon is simply transporting scientists here, and needs someone on this end to monitor his teleport disks so he doesn't cut anyone in half creating them."

 **I think he's building a database.**

"He. The other personality in your head?" A brief consideration. "There are only two of you?"

I nodded. _Why not. Just let it all out._

 **Two of us. Willie and Wile E.**

Somehow, it felt _good_ to finally choose to stop trying to hide things. Almost like letting out my belt after Thanksgiving dinner.

"I see." She nibbled on the tip of her stiletto, then looked at me. The stiletto turned into a pen again. "What kind of database?"

I had a sense of it, sort of, but I wasn't really sure. I could feel Wile E. inspecting my thoughts, and giving them grudging acceptance.

 **How everything works.**

I paused.

 **And how everything is made.**

"Everything? Why not my construct?"

Wile E. sent me an image of a child in the corner with a dunce cap. The child was wearing a military uniform with Miss Militia's scarf. Then he grabbed control of our hand with the pen and stabbed the ' **WTF Physics** ' on the pad again.

 _Back down, Wile E._ , I warned him as Miss Militia narrowed her eyes at my nonverbal outburst.

After a few seconds of staring at me, she responded again. "So, you have some sort of reverse-engineering thinker ability that works on technology that you can understand? When you overload it or see something unexplainable, it causes you pain, and can even knock you out?"

 **Yes.**

Miss Militia nodded. "Interesting. So, back to what happened before outside. What did you see that made you collapse?"

I remembered back.

 **I thought about how much time it would take to fix the runway.**

"I don't get it. How does that impact your power?"

 **Wile E. went back and amended everything.**

"Amended everything?" Miss Militia cocked her head slightly to the side. "I'm missing something."

 **OK. Let me think.**

She nodded, and I tossed ideas against the inside of my skull. Wile E. and I discussed nonverbally on a level that I really can't describe.

I flipped to the next blank page.

 **OK. In order.**

 **First. Identify function.**

 **Second. Identify materials and physics**

 **Third. Identify assembly process**

 **Fourth. Reverse engineer machines and processes used to manufacture components**

 **Fifth. Reverse engineer materials and processes used to make machines used to make components. Reiterate.**

I drew a line.

 **-**

 **This was all at first.**

 **Outside I made Wile E. realize it took time to create things with real physics.**

 **He had not thought of that as part of the definition of items.**

 **So he calculated human labor, scheduling, raw materials acquisition for everything we'd seen before.**

 **That knocked me out.**

Miss Militia turned the pad a little towards her so she could read it easier, and stared at it a second, then looked at me. "You are saying you can see something man-made, and see exactly how it works, how it was put together, and how the parts were made. You also see the machines that made it, and how those machines that made it were made. You see labor and materials requirements. You see, say, a pen," She pointed at the pen in my hand. "and you see everything it took to make the pen?"

Wile E. was indicating there was something was wrong. I reached out my hand and Miss Militia pushed the pad at us.

Wile E. took hand control again and wrote

 **Not exactly. Best guess.**

I remembered the cooling system in the freezer, how it had started out as many possible designs until Wile E. had been able to gather enough data to figure it out exactly. Wile E. inspected that thought and enthusiastically agreed. He showed me his labor and raw materials calculations for several example items and I could see that the equations were precise, yet there were many variables in those precise equations that were defined by value ranges as opposed to specific values. The precision grew as the process grew closer to the end product that we had seen.

 **Analysis less precise the farther from end product.**

"We're getting outside of my knowledge." She looked at me. "That sounds more like a thinker power than a tinker power though."

Wile E. didn't have any comment on that. She had a point. We'd been told we were getting a tinker power though.

I heard the water stop moving in the pipes. Miss Militia's eyes looked up above my head, and she tried to repress a smile. A second later she spoke. "So how does that have anything to do with summoning things, or is summoning things completely separate."

 _I... Wile E. I have no idea. Can you explain it?_

Wile E. took over our hands while snorting at me mentally with an 'of course' feel.

 **I define it, then it exists.**

Miss Militia stared at me. "Just like that? You want something, it exists?"

 **No. Must be FULLY defined.**

Miss Militia's eyes crossed slightly. "Some of your constructs have been analyzed. We can't define them."

 **I made them up. I defined them. Fully, but null variables.**

I heard someone walking across the floor in a nearby hallway. Wile E. had looked down the hallway earlier, and immediately started running calculations. Mouse Protector was walking down the hallway. The sound waveforms indicated she was wearing three towels and bunny slippers. The left slipper had a missing ear.

Miss Militia frowned. "I'm sure I don't get it."

Wile E. was starting to feel a bit irritable in my head.

 **Assign values to unknown variables. Create constructs. Modify constructs. I cheat.**

"This is Wile E. writing." It wasn't a question.

 **Yes.**

"How are your constructs different from mine?"

 **Similar but not same. I fully define constructs. You do not. Yours change. Shift. Modify. No reason. Pen dimensions change slightly as I watch. Stiletto same. Even when not using, always shifting. Suspect conscious choice of construct but subconscious definition.**

Miss Militia's eyes got bigger. "Wait. So the reason why your summoned constructs are unreal looking is because you simply make up some of what is needed to define them?"

 **Exactly. Good.**

Wile E. reached out and patted her hand patronizingly, and the look she shot us back was briefly furious, then faded to a flat stare.

 _Wile E., you are an idiot._ I wrenched control of our hands from Wile E.

I could feel the rage in him beginning to build. Quickly.

 _About people! You're an idiot about people!_

The rage stumbled and halted. There was a sense of agreement and apology.

I came fully to my senses and found my hands on the sides of my head. Miss Militia was looking at me with a suspicious near-glare.

I flipped the page to get what Wile E. had written off the top.

 **Sorry. Wile E. is rude.**

There was a mental huff and a sense of a back turning on me.

I barely heard a door open. It was the same door Richter had gone into. Wile E constructed a wire diagram showing Mouse Protector in three towels and bunny slippers ever so slowly pushing the door open. I could feel a vast amusement coming from Wile E, and a sense of respect.

I realized I was watching Mouse Protector sneaking up on Richter. _Don't you dare do anything, Wile E._ I paused. _Well, let me keep watching, but don't interfere._

Miss Militia's face relaxed a little. "Let me think about things for a minute. Something is bouncing around in my head. I'm going to make coffee. Do you want some?"

 **I don't know if I can drink coffee.**

Wile E. sent me an affirmative.

 **Well, I know now. Yes. Please.**

Standing, she walked a couple steps to a small, cheap coffee machine and started preparing a filter full of coffee she looked at me. "It sounds like your second personality is acting as some sort of an instruction manual for your power."

Wile E. thought about that, and agreed, tentatively. I nodded.

Sighing, Miss Militia filled the machine with water and turned it on, then pulled a couple cups from a cabinet over the sink. "Must be nice. There's a lot of people in this world that would love instruction manuals for powers." There was a bitterness in her voice. Then she clearly made a decision. "Do you remember getting your powers?"

The wireframe drawing of Mouse Protector sneaking up on Richter popped like a soap bubble. An image of Contessa appeared in my mind, in full fidelity, turning to face me, pointing that gun at me. My blood went cold.

Miss Militia was holding her hands up, not like she was giving up, but like she'd messed up. "Whoah. Calm. Sorry. I didn't ask that right. I don't mean what happened to you to make you trigger. I meant, do you remember the darkness, do you remember any odd images or a strange dream."

After a second, I was able to parse what she had said. I didn't have any memories of dreams, just darkness. I shook my head.

Miss Militia frowned. "I was hoping, maybe, because our powers seem... Never mind." She heaved a deep sigh.

Wile E. was already back to tracking Mouse Protector in a wireframe diagram as she slowly crossed the floor towards Richter. The image of the room grew more detailed with each second as the sounds of fans and Richter typing bounced off of surfaces in the room and then out the door, down the hall to where we sat.

Miss Militia was leaning up against the counter, twirling her stiletto absently and looking alternately at us and at the coffee pot while it gurgled and made coffee. The smell was intense. I'd never smelled coffee that strong before.

Wile E. snickered in my mind.

 _What?_

He took control of our hands and touched our nose.

 _Ah. I see. Better sense of smell._

I stopped paying attention to Miss Militia and turned my attention inward to the practical joke that Wile E. was tracking for us.

Mouse Protector was standing less than an arm's length behind Richter's chair. She raised her fingers to her mouth and then lunged, putting a wet finger in each of Richter's ears.

Richter yelled in an almost-scream. "Goddammit Mouse!" His chair spun around and Mouse Protector hopped back a couple feet, nimbly. Richter was frantically rubbing at his ears, head down. After several seconds of rubbing, he looked up and Mouse was standing there, in a heroic pose, hands on hips.

After Richter had been staring at her for about half a second, Mouse Protector puffed out her chest and looked up and to one side. "Once again, the world is saved from dreary boredom by Mouse Protector! Ha! Ha!"

I heard a slap and focused on Miss Militia who had her right palm squarely planted on her forehead.

I turned my attention back, inwardly, to the wireframe diagram, and continued watching.

Richter stared for about three seconds and then whispered. "Mouse, go get some clothes on."

Mouse Protector leaned way forward, obviously intentionally showing significant cleavage, and whispered back. "No. You're married and I've met Alice. I don't have anything you haven't seen, and I'm not showing more than this. Think of it as relaxation material for later on if you want. I'm no home-wrecker, and you know it."

"You're doing it to piss me off then?" he countered in a low, angry voice as he swung his chair around back towards the keyboards in front of him.

Still in a conspiratorial tone, she answered. "Nah, I'm doing it because I want to watch MM interview him."

"You can watch the recording later." Richter hissed. "Go get decent."

"I'm hurt, Richter. I'm always better than decent. I'm awesome." She shot back.

He hunched forward in his chair with terrible posture and grumbled things under his breath that even Wile E. couldn't hear well enough to be sure of.

Mouse Protector hopped up behind his chair and put her crossed arms over the top of the backrest, and then set her chin on her arms, clearly watching the monitors. She went almost completely still. She seemed to be barely breathing, and the only reason we knew she was in the room was due to sound reflections from all the computer fans and Richter's heavy, angry typing sounds.

Wile E. and I were both mentally howling in laughter. It was all I could do to avoid falling to the floor.

Miss Militia started moving towards me, watching me intently. She was carrying two coffee cups on a large saucer in her left hand, and her pen in her right. As she sat down, she said. "OK, so you somehow cheat when you create your constructs. I'm guessing you make them as simple as you can, only defining them sufficiently to do the job you want to do with them?"

That seemed right, and Wile E. sent an absent agreement, so I nodded.

"But" she continued. "You can define things more accurately?"

Wile E. pulled the pad towards us and rapidly wrote.

 **Harder. More accurate = harder.**

Miss Militia looked at the pad and pushed out coffee cup over to us, and pointed at the little rotating gizmo on the table with sugar and salt and pepper and other spices. "Make it how you like it."

I just picked up the cup, and started bringing it to our mouth.

I could feel Wile E. intently waiting, watching, prepared to laugh.

I stared at the cup and it struck me what he was waiting for. _I can't drink out of a cup, Wile E. Can you make a straw that won't melt?_

I learned what 'Curses, foiled again' felt like in my head before there was a moment of concentration and a bright red straw appeared in our hand. I put it in the cup and managed to create a vacuum lock with our lips on the straw, and sucked in a bit of coffee.

The coffee was **strong.** I spluttered a little but didn't splash anything on Miss Militia, I didn't think.

 _Holy crap, Wile E, is she trying to poison us? Oh wait. Enhanced smell. Enhanced taste too?_

There was a humorous nodding sensation from my head-mate.

"Enhanced senses too?" Miss Militia mused. "Makes sense, I suppose, to help you precisely define things."

I nodded to her.

"So, how real can you make things?" She picked up a plastic spoon. Could you make a plastic spoon like this one, or can you only make a cartoon spoon?"

Wile E. seemed irritated and confused by her statement. I picked up why after a second to two, and wrote on the pad.

 **Why make complex? K.I.S.S.**

Miss Militia nodded. "Definitely makes sense. But _can_ you make something fully defined so that it's not a cartoon thing?"

There was a sense of 'yes but I'd rather not' echoing powerfully through my mind.

 _Wile E. can you do it without hurting us? If so, I have an idea._ I sent him the idea. There was a brief irritation, followed by an evil mental grin. A strong sense of agreement with an extra-large helping of mischief on top followed rapidly. I was almost more amused by Wile E.'s reactions than my own expectations.

I felt Wile E. starting to concentrate, and it was a heavy concentration unlike any I'd felt before.

I wrote on the pad.

 **Making something fully defined now. Small. Simple.**

Miss Militia nodded, but tensed up a bit.

I felt Wile E. taking the raw design and starting to define the variables. The steps fell into place, the design grew more and more complex. It felt somehow _heavy_ in our head. The more data he added, the heavier the concept felt.

After about ten seconds, Wile E had defined all of the variables and the image that had started in our mind as a wireframe diagram was now complete, looking real. The data behind the image was immense. It was shocking how much detail could be crammed into something so inconsequential.

Wile E. took control of our left hand and laid it palm-up on the table a foot or so from the pad of paper. He started concentrating hard.

I heard Mouse Protector starting to speak, her voice barely audible over all the fans in the other room. "What's he doing Richter? He's just holding his hand out like a Jedi or something."

"How am I supposed to know? I can't see what he wrote from this angle." Richter hissed back.

About ten seconds later, a small, pink, left-footed bunny slipper with a missing ear popped into existence in our hand.

I heard her whisper, barely audible "What? No way. It's not even the right color."

I shot a thought to Wile E. He concentrated for another two seconds. The slipper changed from pink to grey.

There was about a second of silence before the reaction. "Don't you look at me, Genius! I'm not dressed!" Mouse Protector said loudly as she stormed down the hall.

"Why do you care? Aren't you awesome?" Richter chuckled.

"You're married. That's different." There were loud stomping and door-slamming noises as Mouse Protector left Richter's room, went down the hallway, and into another room.

I was clutching my chest and leaning back in my chair, thumping my feet on the ground as Wile E. showed me the wireframe diagram of Mouse Protector walking down the hallway stiff-legged, smacking her heels hard as she walked, holding her chest and waist towels with one hand each.

Miss Militia picked up the slipper, and rubbed it with one hand, smiling a little. "About those enhanced senses, Genius?"


	9. Chapter 9

I recognized the man on the screen. Armsmaster. He had a reputation as a hero that got things done. After speaking to him for two minutes, I was amazed that he didn't also have a widespread reputation as a colossal prick.

The hero stared at me from the screen of the laptop. "Bullshit. You're telling me you can snap your fingers and make anything you want out of balonium?"

I struggled to control our expression. Wile E. _really_ didn't like Armsmaster, and I was in full agreement. Wile E, however, was gathering concentration to summon something.

 _You can be a smartass if you want, Wile E., but don't break anything and don't hurt anyone,_ I cautiously directed my head-mate.

Agreement and anger accompanied each other in Wile E.'s mental response.

My right hand moved in front of me, held in full view of the camera at the top of the laptop screen. A moment later, a thin pink circle with a red band around it appeared, hooked on my index claw.

Wile E. rolled up the pink and red circle and slowly placed it in our mouth, staring at Armsmaster while doing so. It didn't taste like meat, and I felt it disappear after Wile E. closed our mouth.

The visible lower half of Armsmaster's face reddened slightly, and his jaw clenched. After about a second, his jaw unclenched and he spoke, slowly and carefully. "I'll want to test your ability in a lab before I believe you can really do what you claim."

Mouse Protector, wearing jeans and a ** _"Mess With Me? Bad Idea!"_** T-shirt had been pacing back and forth in the living room on her hands, occasionally stopping on one hand and using the other to tuck the t-shirt back into her jeans.

When she saw Wile E. put the roll of baloney in our mouth, she reflexively brought both hands to her mouth with a muffled snort. There was a loud thump as she landed on her head, an indignant muffled grunt, and then another, louder thump as she fell to her back. A moment later, she started drumming her heels on the carpeted concrete floor. Muffled laughter followed.

Armsmaster reacted to the muffled noises by looking sharply at Miss Militia, but said nothing.

Miss Militia, sitting next to me, sighed. "Yes, Armsmaster, that was Mouse."

"You let her attend a new cape interview?" He was clearly unhappy.

"She did bring him in. Without a fight, I might add." Miss Militia commented, with a shrug.

"But not without collateral damage." He said, clearly irritated as ha shook his head. "Still, it's not my place to interfere with agents in the field."

She agreed with him. "Correct, and, no offense intended, I wasn't asking for your input on Mouse."

After a second, Armsmaster sighed, and nodded. "I do _**not**_ know how you work with her."

Miss Militia continued. "A couple short pieces of duct tape and a promise are generally sufficient to make Mouse behave well enough to have her listen in on a serious discussion."

After a second, Armsmaster started chuckling. "I'll have to add that one to my list of impossible things you can manage with duct tape, thank you."

Mouse, laying on her back, stopped smacking her heels on the ground and shot both arms in the air, a one finger salute proudly displayed on each hand. She bent her elbows, dropping her hands a bit, then jammed them into the air again, while rotating her wrists.

 _Something tells me that Armsmaster and Mouse Protector know each other._

Miss Militia looked in Mouse Protector's direction with a little frown, and then back towards the screen. "Back to serious business. So, did you get a settlement number from legal?"

Armsmaster nodded. "Yes. The total settlement number ended up being three point two million dollars for losses, damage, legal expenses, and criminal penalties. This included a couple crimes that Genius said his brother committed, but he himself had nothing to do with." He paused, and looked at me. "There are still questions about where the stolen goods went to, but those questions won't be as pointed, if you can pay the settlement."

I nodded.

Armsmaster ducked his head a little in a nod. "You'll also get at least a little sympathy from a lot of different people for offering to take responsibility for your brother's crimes as well. A little responsibility goes a long way in our world."

I jerked back in my seat a bit. _Tim. Dammit, Armsmaster, you..._ I stopped myself short, not completing the thought. Considering what he had said, and how he had said it, I didn't see anything that I should be angry at. There hadn't been anything in his voice to make me think he was being intentionally hurtful, or trying to use my brother's memory against me.

I nodded back at him once, slowly, while thinking to myself. _Even assholes can have redeeming qualities, I guess._ I was also fairly certain that if I'd been in my old body that I would have been a lot more upset than I was at the time.

Miss Militia nodded. "Three point two million dollars US is currently..." She paused, and looked at a number she had written down on a sheet of paper. "A little under seventy kilos of gold."

As we had agreed, Wile E. started concentrating. I felt the design growing rapidly in my mind. The complexity was far lower than the bunny slipper, but there was a great deal more mass to define.

Almost thirty seconds later, a golden brick, ten centimeters tall, ten centimeters wide, and sixty-six point one three centimeters long formed lengthwise on the table. The table groaned heavily at the added mass, but didn't tip over or break. Wile E. had added a few braces to it earlier when we were planning.

Creating that much fully defined mass nearly knocked me flat on my ass. I was exhausted and it felt like Wile E. was curling up in my mind to take a nap. His presence didn't go away, but it felt lazy and half asleep.

In a happy voice, Miss Militia broke the long silence. "We will send this to you, Armsmaster, and you can test it. I suspect that PRT tinkers will find a use for pure gold, and the PRT can pay forward what Genius owed to settle his legal problems out of the tinker materials budget."

I poked at the number stamped into the bar with my right index claw and Miss Militia leaned over to look at it.

"Ah, Genius has given a little extra. Seventy-five kilos." She nodded to me.

Armsmaster stared at us for several seconds, looking back and forth from one of us to the other. "Miss Militia, if this is real, do you understand what it means?"

She nodded. "Yes, Armsmaster. I've already asked Genius to avoid crashing the world economy. I also got a promise from him to ask permission from a team leader before summoning antimatter, neutronium, large masses of fissionable material, or anything else that might be considered a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon of mass destruction."

I nodded eagerly at Armsmaster, intentionally acting like I wasn't taking the conversation seriously.

Armsmaster's jaw clenched. I heard his teeth grind together, briefly, before he relaxed his jaw and spoke. "I see. Send the gold on the next diplomatic flight please." He said nothing else as he reached towards the screen and disconnected the session.

Miss Militia's mouth twitched after the screen went dark. "OK, Mouse, you can take the duct tape off now."


	10. Chapter 10

Wile E. had _known_ there was an airplane in the hangar, based on fresh smells of petrochemicals, ozone, and other scents. As soon as the three of us had stopped laughing at Armsmaster, he had taken control of our hands and written on the pad.

 **Wish to see airplane.**

Miss Militia looked at us seriously for a moment. "You are not allowed to take it apart. The same goes for all the tools and diagnostic equipment."

 **?**

She waved her hand and shook her head slightly. "Sorry. You seem so much like a tinker that I will probably treat you like one for a while. Please forgive me. Anyway, tinkers tend to cannibalize and recycle machines and materials for their own use. This tends to make those machines nonfunctional. If you do have that urge, resist it. Planes are expensive, even small ones. Especially now that ocean transport has become so risky."

She was looking at me in a very no-nonsense manner.

I nodded my head and took control of our hand.

 **Understood.**

"Good. Mouse, go introduce Genius to Harry and let him see the plane. I need to call to the airfield owners about the runway. I'm amazed they haven't called us yet."

"They probably don't even know yet. Everyone seems caught up watching bird-woman" Mouse said quickly.

"Simurgh, Mouse. A little respect." Miss Militia sighed.

"Nothing to respect yet. She's wandering around singing at people and pretending to want to talk to us."

"Stop it, Mouse. You aren't an expert."

"Nah, but I'm a joker. Simurgh is too, I can tell. She's acting too smart to not be able to communicate if she wants. She doesn't curve around. Straight lines, from here to there, every time. Then she sings at people for a while, and flies off in another straight line. The news people tell us exactly where she's headed towards next, and she always goes there."

I heard Richter stand up and walk to his door. As he stepped out into the hallway, he started speaking in a teacher-like tone. "Scion has said a single word in two decades, Mouse, and he always seems to move in straight lines too."

"Oh, I get it. The female of the species is the talkative one, and all that talk is meaningless, right? Is she curing cancer, rescuing people from natural disasters, or teaching people things? Is she giving people cape powers? No. What's the point? Scion at least does things. If she's like Scion, why is she floating around Switzerland and singing opera, or whatever?"

Richter folded his hands across his chest, and stared. "Some of the most intelligent people in the world, including quite a few thinkers, are trying to talk to Simurgh, but you have her all figured out, right? Did you second trigger with a thinker power during the rocket-ride with Genius here?"

Miss Militia's eyes popped wide open at that and she covered her mouth with one hand, while simultaneously turning to look at Mouse. She was barely containing laughter.

"Righto, Mr. Computer Brain. I stand corrected!" Mouse kipped up from her back _onto her hands,_ startling me, but then she skipped down the hallway to the hangar door, _still on her hands_.

It was bizarre that she seemed as comfortable on her hands as a normal person was on their feet. There were no stutter-steps, she never seemed the slightest off balance. If I hadn't seen her walking normally before, I might have even thought that she couldn't walk on her legs, or something.

Wile E. wasn't nearly as impressed as me. He wanted to see the airplane.

We walked by Richter, who was staring at Mouse with an irritated, but thoughtful look on his face. He turned around and walked back to his computer desk.

I slowly walked past Richter's door, so Wile E. would only slowly be able to see into the room through the open door.

As we crossed the area in front of the doorway, more and more of the computer equipment became visible. I felt Wile E reverse engineering everything, but it wasn't as painful as I'd expected it to be. Apparently, there weren't any tinker computers in the room.

As we started to see more of the room, I heard a new female voice, coming from the headphones Richter was wearing. "Privacy breach. Blanking workstation screens." There was a pause. "Entity defined as Genius has reacted to my voice. Continue test of anti-practical-joke module, yes or no?"

Richter was completely relaxed-looking until the voice told him we overheard it. Then he stiffened slightly, and turned to me, softly saying. "No." After a second or so, he held one finger in front of his lips, then dropped the finger and smiled as he pointed towards where Mouse had gone.

I gave him a thumbs up, and he grinned back at me, still acting like he was hiding something. I decided I wouldn't interfere with his practical joke on Mouse, whatever that ended up being. Mouse had clearly gotten one up on him a few minutes ago, and he'd just antagonized her a bit after that. From what I'd seen of Mouse so far, I was fairly sure she'd escalate.

I pushed a thought to Wile E. with a mental smile, _the next time Mouse tries to sneak up on Richter will be funny, I bet._ Wile E. and I both agreed that we wanted to see what Richter came up with. As we walked past Richter's doorway, we scanned the rest of the room - fortunately for my head, nothing terribly exciting was encountered, though the computers were far more advanced than anything we'd seen before.

Mouse had entered the hangar and yelled "Harry! Hello Harry! How's our favorite mechanic today? Whatcha working on? Let me introduce you to a new cape, Genius!"

As I slowly walked to the doorway, Wile E. saw the tip of a plane's wing, and tried to make us walk faster.

 _Wile E. It's not going anywhere. Not in the next couple seconds. Take it slow, please._

There was a sense of impatience mixed with a clear accusation of spoilsport, but we continued to move forward slowly.

As more and more of the plane became visible, our mind raced. It was a small twin engine jet. I started to get a headache and forced us back away from the door again. After a few seconds, the pain disappeared.

"No need to be shy, son, I don't bite." An older man's voice.

"He's not shy, Harry. I think he's afraid of the plane."

"Afraid of..." The man's voice paused, then started again. "Are we going to be transporting another cape afraid of heights? The last time we tried that you damn near destroyed the plane subduing them. It took me a month to fix everything."

Mouse laughed infectiously. "Nah. Genius isn't afraid of heights. He took me on a rocket ride to see the Space Station about an hour ago. It hurts his brain when he sees technology for the first time, that's all."

The man muttered under his breath. "Mouse is this another practical joke?"

Mouse didn't answer. "Ooh, what does this do?"

"Don't touch it, Mouse. Remember my job?"

In a sheepish voice, Mouse replied. "Yes, Harry. Your job is to keep us from dying in a terrible fireball. Well, keep everyone but me from dying in a terrible fireball. I'd just teleport away."

Harry pressed on, in an almost bored voice. "And what are you supposed to do to help me keep everyone from dying in a terrible fireball?"

Mouse muttered in a low voice. "Never touch any part of the plane that a normal person would need tools to take apart."

"You know where you are supposed to sit if I'm working on the plane while you are in here." His voice was stern, fatherly.

I turned the corner and saw the rest of the plane, which was again painfully filling my head. Wile E. was fascinated to a level where I felt almost alone in my head. Wile E.'s near-absence felt a bit weird, like a missing tooth the day after it was pulled.

Harry was a tall, lanky grey-haired man standing next to a tool cart, under one of the plane's engines, methodically working as he spoke.

I did a double-take. Mouse was _sitting down_ , cross-legged, about five feet in front of the nose wheel of the plane, with her hands crossed under her armpits. She waved at me, and then immediately put her right hand back under her left armpit. "C'mon Genius. You wanted to see the plane, right?"

I nodded, and the man, Harry, looked at me, then at Mouse, and sighed. After sighing, he took his hands out of the access port of the engine he was working on and put two tools down on the tool cart in a precise, fussy manner, then wiped his hands on a shop rag. "No practical jokes in the hangar, Mouse."

"It's not a joke, Harry! Promise! I don't want you guys to die in a horrible fireball, I did promise, remember?"

Harry looked at me. Then he looked at Mouse, and then back to me. "Seriously?"

I nodded.

"He's mute, Harry."

Harry shook his head. "This world gets more insane every day. Please leave. I have to finish this lubrication job, and then test the other engine. It was four degrees over normal operating temperature for the conditions on landing the other day, and I need to find out why."

I felt Wile E.'s mind begin to race, and the diagram of the plane in our head started to go into a dynamic state. In my mind's eye, I watched as the image of the motor got more and more real, and then the colors changed. It was a temperature analysis. Things started to move and adjust themselves in the engine in our head, and our attention was drawn to a single device. Some sort of actuator, connected to a valve. There was a wire hanging in front of the actuator, blocking it from fully extending. That was interfering with airflow.

Wile E. started walking us towards the plane.

"Stop him, Mouse." Harry's voice, with an edge.

Mouse bounced up and put her hand on my chest. "No touching the plane, Genius. Serious rules. Boring, but serious."

I looked down at her. She was not smiling.

Harry hadn't moved, but when he saw me looking at him, he spoke. "Sorry, but nobody touches the plane but me, unless I say so. That's in my contract. I own it. I pilot it. I maintain it. The PRT insures it." He didn't sound angry, just matter-of-fact.

Wile E. was irritated.

 _Stop it, Wile E. We can show him what you found, you don't have to fix it yourself._

I lifted the pad and pulled the pen out of the plastic coil that held the papers.

 **We know the problem. Can show it to you.**

Harry tilted his head and looked at Mouse.

"He might, Harry. He's got some weird technical analysis power or something."

"Fine. Sit down next to Mouse. I have about five minutes left to finish this PM, and then I'll let you show me where you think the problem is. I'm not starting another job when this job is half done."

I sat down next to Mouse, who started to talk at about a hundred miles an hour.

"Can you make a time machine?"

Wile E. was violently opposed to the concept, painfully making his opinion on that known.

I shook my head.

"Teleporter?"

Wile E. figured out what was happening, and took control of our head, shaking it.

"Invulnerability field?"

Head shake.

"Light saber?"

When Wile E. shook my head at that, Mouse pouted.

"Monofilament blade sword?"

Wile E. hesitated on that, and I winced as he began to theorize. Carbon nanotubes and high density energy storage unit to power the extension of the blade could make a sort of monofilament blade, but it would require a power pack the size of a motorcycle, based on Wile E.'s best design.

I wrote on the pad. "No good in a fight. Several hundred kilos. Maybe for a tool room."

Mouse's bottom lip jutted out and she slouched a bit. A few seconds later she started asking me about more things that mostly gave me headaches.

A couple minutes later, Harry spoke "Eleven millimeter combination open and box-end wrench?"

Wile E. concentrated, and a wrench popped into our hands. I held it out towards Harry, who took it out of our hand.

"Will it disappear on me? It feels light." He held it at both ends and tried to bend it with obvious effort as Wile E. shook our head. "I could damage something critical if it poofs in the middle of a job." He set it on top of a toolbox on the cart, and looked at it closely. "Seems stiff enough."

Wiley wrote on the pad.

 **Permanent. If no abuse, will last many years. You keep.**

This seemed weird. _Wile E. are you trying to bribe the guy? Why?_

There was a sense of irritation from Wile E.

Harry was looking at it suspiciously. "It's just a wrench? No extra functions if I twist it or bang it the wrong way? No self-destruct?"

 **Just a wrench.**

Harry stared at the pad and then at the red wrench for a few seconds, before looking at Mouse.

Mouse bounced happily as she sat cross-legged and cross-armed. "He makes stuff, Harry. Kind of like Miss Militia, but slower. He can make different kinds of things besides weapons, too, like rocket-powered roller skates and fuzzy bunny slippers!"

"I see." Harry looked at the wrench again. "You still can't touch my plane unless I tell you to, understood?"

Wile E. wasn't mad. He was actually happy and seemed to like Harry.

A couple minutes later, standing behind Harry, we pointed out the loose wire with a laser pointer after he had opened up an access panel.

Harry looked at us, back at the wire, and then back to us. "How did you see it?"

The pad was running out of sheets. We'd need a new one soon.

Wile E. intercepted that thought and snorted in my general mental direction as I realized that was pretty silly to worry about. Then he wrote, for Harry:

 **Sound and electromagnetic scatter analysis for physical measurements. Heat modeling based on combustion and airflow.**

"In your head?" Harry stared wide-eyed at us.

Wile E. nodded.

Harry looked a bit worried. "Passive, or active? If any of it was active sensing, what energy levels? Could it have damaged instruments or sensors?"

 **Passive.**

Harry relaxed a little. "If you see anything else, passively sensing, let me know. But I fix it, OK? No active sensing unless you clear it with me."

I felt Wile E.'s agreement, and nodded.

Harry waved his hands at us to shoo us both away, with a bit of a smile. "Thank you, Genius, and it was good to see you too, Mouse, but I have work to do, and you're both distractions. Git!"

As we walked out the door, back into the hallway, I closed it. Closing doors didn't seem to be a habit Mouse understood.

A moment later, we walked past Richter's door. I heard the female voice in his headphones warning Richter we were behind him, but he didn't react. Mouse stopped, stood still a second with her head turned towards Richter, but then shook her head and muttered "Too soon."

After we entered the living room again, Mouse did a double-cartwheel, jumped over a couch, and slid into an overstuffed recliner with precision and grace that just didn't seem human at all.

Miss Militia was on the phone, apparently speaking with someone from the airport. "Yes. I understand. We will repair the runway, or at least see to it that the wreckage is cleared and the runway is prepared for being repaired." A pause. "We can't leave until we fix it, not without calling in favors." Another pause. "If we can't fix it ourselves, you are welcome to place a claim with our insurance company, as indicated on the lease, yes. We won't leave you in worse condition than what we arrived in, and that includes lost revenue."

The person on the other end of the phone was not talking loudly, there was static in the line, and they were speaking English with a heavy accent. Wile E could hear them, but it wasn't worth the effort to translate. The fact that they were complaining about us trenching the runway was pretty obvious.

 _We need to go fix that runway, Wile E.,_ I thought.

There was a little grumbling but he didn't seem really upset.

 _Oh, stop whining. We can relax later._

I sat down across from Miss Militia at the table and put the pad down, and wrote:

 **Going to fix runway now.**

Miss Militia pulled a real pen out of her pocket, and wrote:

 **Clean the debris off too.**

I replied:

 **Understood.**

The person on the other side of her phone call was still venting loudly. Miss Militia pointed at the phone and raised both eyes at the ceiling with a bored expression. She looked at Mouse, who was now fiddling with a smartphone, and then wrote:

 **Take Mouse with you. She helped create the mess, she helps clean it up.**

After I read it, Miss Militia balled up the sheet. Her green stiletto changed shape into something that looked like a little potato cannon. She stuffed the balled up paper into it and aimed the gun at Mouse.

As she pulled the trigger, her little gun made a *poomf* noise of released compressed air, Mouse simply disappeared from where she was and reformed next to me, grabbing the paper ball out of the air with a blurring hand less than six inches from the end of Miss Militia's micro-potato-cannon.

Her teleport didn't hurt my brain as bad as the first time Wile E. had seen her do it, but I still winced.

Mouse slid her smartphone cover into place, tucked it into her back pocket, and then buttoned the pocket over the smartphone. She took a step away, barely out of my arm's reach, unfolded the paper, read it, and nodded. "I'll go get my shovel and broom."

 _You have your own personal shovel and broom?_ I thought, as I watched her walk back towards the room she had gotten dressed in earlier.

Mouse looked back at me. "You, Genius, need to work on your nerves. You won't be much good in a fight if you're afraid of new technology all the time, or freeze up any time someone uses their powers near you."

Wiley snarled a little at that, and apparently some of it showed on my face.

She smiled an evil grin. "Don't worry, Genius, if there's anything I'm good at, it's keeping people on their toes. It won't be long until almost nothing startles you."

As she walked back down the hallway to get her tools I looked at Miss Militia, who just smiled at me, and wrote another message:

 **Mouse seems crazy, but it's not all crazy.** **Nothing** **surprises me or my squad anymore.**

Wile E. did not exactly like that, but I could feel him echoing my thoughts that it would probably be better to deal with Mouse before going into a real fight.

I pushed a thought at Wile E. _Do we really want to get into real fights though? I mean..._

Wile E. cut me off. Clear disagreement with me. He wanted to hunt. I could feel the need in him. It was infectious. I could feel myself starting to smile as Wile E. put forward all sorts of diagrams of gizmos and traps in my head.

Shaking my head, I looked down the hallway towards where Mouse had gone, and at Miss Militia.

Miss Militia pointed at the door leading to the runway, and mouthed "Go!"

**

Mouse was talking nonstop as she pushed her broom. Her shovel was in one of the two slots of the back-holster that was designed for the shovel and broom. "Hero signed them, and Legend too! Hero even got Eidolon and Alexandria to sign them. The only shovel and broom in the world signed by the four of them!" She bounced over to me and I could see where there were four signatures in the solid steel handle of the broom, covered by what Wile E. told me was an acrylic.

I couldn't help but laugh as I realized how bad Mouse really must have been to have her own personal set of cleanup tools signed by those four.

Mouse looked up at me. "Yup, it is pretty funny. I laugh about it too, but I miss Hero, he really was a good guy." She paused for several seconds, and coughed. "He's one reason why I push everyone around me so hard. He was so nice, I gave him a break. Didn't bug him much. Siberian caught him off guard, and the bitch killed him. If you ever figure out a way to make a light saber, you _will_ make me one." She stared at me with a glare that would bore holes in steel.

I nodded.

Leaning against her broom, fingering the acrylic over the signature plate carefully, Mouse turned her gaze away from me, and stared off into the distance for a short time before she continued, in a bitter voice. "I've had enough therapy to know, in my head, that it really wasn't my fault. That doesn't stop me from feeling like I might have prevented it. I should have pushed him harder, played more jokes on him. If I had helped him develop more situational awareness and faster reaction speed, he might still be alive."

 _Tim._ I thought to myself, with a mental pang. _I can relate, Mouse._ Not being able to talk was a real pain.

She was standing there, next to me, leaning on her broom, sniffling a bit. I didn't really know what to say - and even if I had the words, I couldn't say them. Instead, I held my broom in my left hand and reached out my right arm to gave Mouse a little buddy-hug, bouncing her up against me lightly, careful not to claw her right shoulder with my right hand. I thought about the fun Tim and I had before we'd gotten into crime as I gently squeezed her against my side.

She reached her left arm out around my ribs and gave me a little hug back, and looked up at me with tears rolling down her cheeks. "Thanks. These days, the more I like someone, the harder I push them."

I nodded back at her. Wile E. pushed a thought at me that felt like "Oh, shit."

The next thing I knew there was a sensation of falling hard, flat on my back, and bouncing. When I got my bearings back about a second later, I was looking up at Mouse, who was grinning down at me through her tears. "Don't let your guard down, Genius. I like you."


	11. Chapter 11

I was a more than a little shocked, but other than a little quickly-passing ache in my back, I wasn't hurt.

I stared up at Mouse, and a phrase ran across my mind.

Wile E. caught the phrase as I thought it, and before I could think to tell him no, he summoned a sign in our left hand.

 **OF COURSE YOU KNOW, THIS MEANS WAR!**

Mouse looked down at the sign and started cackling madly, almost collapsing, barely holding herself upright with her broom handle for several seconds before she took a deep breath and held her right hand out for me. "Deal. Now get up and lets finish fixing this runway. You can do something to reform the concrete and melt and re-harden the asphalt?"

I nodded, and held out my hand. Cautiously.


	12. Chapter 12

Fixing the runway wasn't that difficult. Wile E. created two big barrels, one with a liquid slightly above the density of asphalt, and the other with density slightly lower. Shovel the asphalt in the first, then stir. Shovel the floating remnants into the second, and stir. The asphalt was then at the bottom of the second barrel. With the asphalt separated out, we poured the concrete chunks and gravel into the hole, and then mixed the rest with some sort of reddish cement mix that Wiley summoned. After pouring it, we had to wait for it to cure for a while before replacing the asphalt.

Mouse asked, curiously, "Why not wave your fingers and just create the concrete already cured around the rocks?"

Wile E. cringed in my head, and pulled the pad out.

I was curious too, and wanted his reason.

 **This way: Model only uniform molecular structure in binding agent. Mix with aggregate.**

 **Your way: Model all aggregate pieces. Model all chemical reactions. Very intense calculations.**

He drew a stick figure of a coyote-man lying unconscious next to a hole, smoke coming out of the ears, and then a circle around the figure and a line through the circle.

 _Thank you, Wile E., I think._ I muttered mentally in his direction.

Mouse held a hand over her mouth for a second, hiding a grin. "Ah, so you're avoiding modeling chemical reactions? I can understand that. I hated chemistry in high school." Suddenly, Mouse punched us lightly in the shoulder with blinding speed, and yelped, jumping back, her hair standing straight up in the air like a giant afro.

I doubled over laughing. Mouse had been punching us occasionally over the last couple hours, poking fun, insisting we needed to react faster, that we should also be trying to surprise her. Her strikes hadn't been painful, though some had been hard enough to break bones if we had been breakable like a normal person.

Wile E. and I had been in silent communication for several minutes after the most recent punch, and decided we simply weren't fast enough to directly counter her, so we would make her stop hitting us. There were now dozens of taser wires across our body, hidden in our fur. Every time Mouse approached us from now on, Wile E. would grow contact points on the hidden wires covering parts of our body where Mouse could hit us. Our body was not conductive to electricity at all.

Mouse stared at us, briefly, with her eyes narrowed, then looked at the minor burns across her knuckles where she'd hit the contacts. "That's pretty good."

I couldn't stop laughing. Her hair was still sticking straight up, she looked like a dandelion. Wile E. had followed through with what we agreed on.

When she started trying to finger-comb her hair back into place, it wouldn't cooperate. After several attempts, she gave us a flat stare. "I've been shocked before. My hair doesn't do this."

Wile E. whistled innocently, out loud, while twiddling our thumbs together.

Mouse's face became much more serious and she raised her fist in front of her face. "If you've permanently messed up my hair I'm going to hurt you, Genius."

I tapped our shoulder where she had just hit us, and grinned at her.

"Oh, I don't THINK so! You WILL fix my hair!" She leaned over, and picked up a handful of small pieces of concrete left over from our work. She pulled one piece out into her right hand and started tossing it into the air, menacingly.

I spent the next ten minutes being chased around the runway by Mouse as she yelled about her hair and hit us with thrown pieces of concrete. Wile E. tried time after time to devise defenses against Mouse's rocks, but she was relentless. Any sort of directional defense was useless, because she would simply teleport to a different position at the instant before she released a projectile. Wile E. even tried to create body armor, but Mouse had put on the leather gloves we had found in the wheelbarrow in the hangar with my shovel and broom. As he created armor, she would teleport in, grab it, and teleport away with it.

Without risking hurting her badly, Wile E. couldn't electrify the armor enough to shock her through the gloves and keep her from teleporting it away. He had tried to explain something to me that seemed as if he wanted to try to drug her with a substance on the armor, but I told him no. When he seemed upset, I changed the answer to maybe later, **_after_** he explained what it would do. I damn well wasn't going to risk drugging Mouse Protector. I did NOT want to be responsible for her going on a bad acid trip or something.

Miss Militia briefly came outside to watch us, probably after hearing my Yips and Yipes as I was stung by thrown rocks.

Mouse shouted at her. "We're waiting for the concrete to dry! Look what he did to my hair!"

Shaking her head, slowly, Miss Militia turned and walked back towards the door.

I tried to have a little fun and drag Miss Militia into it, but she ignored me as I managed to get close to her and go to my knees, intertwining my hands together in a begging posture while looking at her with what I hoped were puppy-dog eyes.

As the door closed behind her, I heard her mutter something about sending us both to the Boston team because we'd drive Accord completely mad.

Immediately after the door closed, Mouse, who had stopped throwing rocks when I was next to Miss Militia, beaned me in the side of the head with another rock.

As I tumbled across the runway several times, Mouse struck a heroic pose, hands on her hips, looking like super-dandelion girl. "Evildoer! Miss Militia won't be swayed to the Dark Side by the likes of you! Now fix my damn hair!"

After I finally, wordlessly, managed to convinced Wile E. to make Mouse the substance that would wash out whatever it was he'd added to her hair, she calmed down.

"Never, ever mess with my hair again, Genius."

I whistled innocently, and looked away from her like a little kid, because I now knew it bothered her, which made it fair game, to at least some degree.

"I mean it, Genius!" She stomped off, back into the building. A few minutes later, she returned, her brown hair laying down properly and smelling as if she'd showered and used a strawberry body wash. It smelled really good, and she looked really good too.

Even though I didn't feel any sort of acute sexual attraction to her, I was really annoyed that I wasn't male any longer, because I knew damn well I _should_ be feeling that sexual attraction. I remembered that much about being male, and what I liked.

I grumbled at Wile E. and he was extremely confused.

**

After we finished repairing the runway, Mouse had been staring at me and smiling evil grins every now and then. That made both Wile E. and I get worried. When we came inside, Miss Militia made us both promise to not engage in horseplay, and watched us closely as we watched the news about Simurgh and she read reports at the kitchen table, clearly not trusting either of us.

Richter apparently lived in his room, rarely coming out for anything other than Diet Coke and granola refills. When I drew a poop-sock on a piece of paper and showed it to Mouse after pointing at Richter's door, she laughed for several seconds before saying "Almost. I'm sure his wife would object. Strongly. She's a shut-in type too, does web design for a living, but nice enough."

Three more groups of scientists, linguists, and psychologists arrived, courtesy of Eidolon's teleporter. Every one of them spoke with Richter at length about their specialties and he provided them with handheld devices that would give them access to all known data on the Simurgh. He also explained how to access Naga, his heuristic data mining application, which could help them correlate data gathered by others that might be appropriate to their fields of study.

Wile E., of course, got a good read on the handheld devices, and found nothing to give us a headache. Whatever made them special was software, which wasn't something detectable to us. Richter was apparently a thinker or, maybe a tinker that worked with software, which seemed weird, but I was pretty weird myself.

Late that evening, a package arrived for Mouse. Wile E. could not get a good read on its contents through the packaging, which seemed to be made of metallic foils, electrostatic bags, and sound absorbing substances. Something in the package was made of cedar though, I could smell it.

Every time I stopped controlling the body, Wile E. was staring at the little package. Mouse did not fail to notice our preoccupation. She made sure the little package stayed in our view as much as possible, smiling innocently at us every now and then, but not opening the package.

Miss Militia also noticed her little game with the package. "Mouse, it will not explode, smell horrible, or otherwise make me want to shoot you with a tranquilizer, will it?"

"No, MM, none of the above. It's a surprise for tomorrow, and I promise it won't bother you at all." Mouse smiled a huge, gloating grin at me.

**

I couldn't sleep that night, which was really weird after all I'd done during the day. At about 0300, I was still laying back in the recliner, wide awake.

Leaning over, I grabbed the pad, getting Wile E.'s attention immediately.

 **You only understand physics that can be fully described, right?**

There was a wary agreement, and Wile E. took control of the pad, writing:

 **Hypothetical extrapolation is possible for partial comprehension, but not construct generation to duplicate effects.**

I took control again:

 **So you can only create what you fully understand, but you can partially understand some of the WTF physics that you complained about to Miss Militia?**

There was a strong agreement.

 **Is that what you did to see through the black egg thing at Cauldron? What was that book?**

Realizing what I'd just done, I started frantically scratching out the line to make it unreadable. Wile E. concentrated and a small red box appeared next to us. He took control of our hands, put the notepad in the box, and walked us outside. After we quietly closed the door behind us, he set the box down and concentrated. Some liquid fell into the box, and then a small glowing object fell in. The wet pad burned furiously, and a screen appeared over the top, holding the ash in.

Another pad appeared in our hand, and he started writing:

 **Yes. Scrambled signals. Did not eliminate energy output. Deeper function required to analyze energies I was detecting, then convert to data comprehensible to you.**

I cautiously wrote on the pad:  
 **So, you used your own bit of WTF physics to comprehend the other WTF physics well enough to bypass it, but you can't duplicate the field effect. You just worked around it.**

There was another sense of strong agreement. We looked down at the remnants of the old pad, now reduced to black curls of ash in the box. A clear liquid that I was fairly sure was water poured into the box, turning the black curls of paper into a black slurry. I felt Wile E. trying to analyze the mess, and then another stream of liquid that smelled like alcohol poured into the slurry. A red top appeared over the box and we picked it up and shook it like a martini before pouring the black liquid contents of the box into the bushes next to the door. Wile E. stared at the puddle for several seconds before nodding.

Miss Militia was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee when we returned indoors, and asked us. "Not tired?"

I just shook our head. I was pretty sure she couldn't have seen anything about the Cauldron reference on the pad, and Wile E. didn't seem worried.

"Ah, I can understand that. I don't need to sleep. Not since my trigger. It gives me plenty of time to study and do paperwork." She paused. "You don't have a human physiology any longer, you may no longer need to sleep either. There are a couple capes besides me that don't. It would even make more sense for you than it does for me, since I've still got a human body. I make sleep specialists go cross-eyed." She smiled. "The power has its moments outside fighting."

I nodded.

"Well, I'm heading back to my room. Lots of reports to fill out, and many more to read." She nodded at me and walked back to her room.

At around 0400 we were still wide awake.

 **Do we need sleep?** I wrote on the pad.

There was a hesitant, but clearly negative response.

 **Well, in that case, we know Mouse is planning something with whatever is inside that box. Should we be, umm, proactive?**

There was a sense of strong agreement and eagerness.

Eventually, we decided on a practical joke and Wile E. started cackling madly in my mind. What he was doing was difficult because he couldn't see the room, but he managed, slowly, since the objects he was summoning were of such little mass, and only partly defined

I lost sixteen games of chess in a row to Wile E. before I heard Mouse's alarm clock go off. We stopped playing and concentrated on Mouse's room. I heard her grumble and then the bedsprings made noises. Wile E. painted a wire frame picture in my mind of Mouse putting on her bunny slippers and starting to walk towards her door. The startled shouts, swinging arms, and cursing started after the third step. Two seconds later, Mouse popped into existence next to us, staring fiercely, heavily draped in hundreds of strands of spider silk that appeared slightly pinkish.

"I. am. not. a. morning. person." She announced as she punched us in the head, hard, but not hard enough to knock us off the chair.

As she walked away from us, hair frizzed due to the shock she had just gotten from the taser wires in our fur, she spoke again. "There better be hot cocoa waiting for me when I get out of the shower, Genius. If there isn't, shock gizmo or not, I'm going to tie you into a pretzel and mail you home."

I quickly started making hot cocoa.


	13. Chapter 13

"Any breakthroughs on Simurgh yet, Richter?" Miss Militia asked as she ate a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar.

Richter mumbled something using half a dozen words with more than five syllables each.

 _Wile E. was that a yes or no?_ I thought into my head.

I received a clear impression of a shaking head.

Richter turned his head to stare at Miss Militia. "I really need direct access to her. The data I'm getting from all the other scientists and capes is strange. Recordings at an extreme distance are subtly different from those up close. Some of the data I'm getting actually seems to change over time as well."

After a few seconds, she responded. "We've been over this before. There are dozens of the best minds in the world who specialize in anthropology, linguistics, diplomacy, and other communication-related fields already following Simurgh, gathering data. Your specialty is data integration. You can integrate data just as easily from here as you could by following Simurgh around." She paused. "Easier, even. You said so yourself, when we convinced you to come and join us here for data support. The only reason you would come at all is because there wasn't enough cross-Atlantic bandwidth from Switzerland."

Dropping his open palm to the table just hard enough to make everything on the table shake, Richter replied. "That was before. I've studied hundreds of hours of her songs. I've modeled and analyzed it, and it still doesn't make sense, but it _almost_ makes sense. I can see it, almost like a visual mirage. There are clear signs of order in her song. Every individual she concentrates on gets a different song. If I get direct exposure to her song, if she chooses to try to communicate with me directly, maybe..."

Mouse looked up from her second cup of hot cocoa. "If she wanted to talk to you, she would be flying here. Whatever she's doing, it's deliberate."

Richter's head swiveled to Mouse. "As much as agreeing with you about something intellectual hurts my brain, Mouse Protector, I have to admit that after your outburst the other night, I ran some models and I think you're right. At least partially right."

"You can call it intellectual. I call it tactical. I don't know what she's doing, but whatever it is, she's doing it with a purpose. She's also blowing us off. She's definitely smart enough to talk to us if she wanted to, or at least start trying. It doesn't take that much smarts to scratch symbols on the ground and start pointing at things."

Richter started to say something, but Mouse cut him off. "Scion doesn't sing at people. He doesn't talk, but he doesn't pretend to communicate either."

The two of them stared at each other for several seconds before Richter responded. "That makes it more important that I..."

Mouse broke in, finishing his sentence in words he clearly didn't intend to use "...satisfy my curiosity, even if it creates additional risk because I'm crunchy like a normal person?"

Richter _sulked_.

Mouse tapped her finger on his hand. "We know she somehow fries any sensing equipment that we try to bring to bear on her directly. She doesn't seem to be angry when it happens, or even notice that she's doing it." Mouse slowly moved her finger up and tapped him on the forehead. "You, Mr. Thinker, have some pretty potent sensing equipment in your brain cage. I like Alice. I do not want to live with myself if you get close to Simurgh and whatever it is that fries sensing equipment aimed at her fries your brain."

I picked up the pad and wrote:

 **We can work with Richter? Better sensing equipment? Modify in the field, on the fly? Richter stays here we go there?**

Richter stared at me. "If I can't go there because she might fry my brain, why should you?"

Wile E. grew instantly irritated, then I felt him get an idea that felt mischievous. He lifted our left hand, stuck it into our left ear, and pushed it through our head where it emerged from our right ear. I was stunned and afraid to move as the loud squeaking started.

The other three at the table just stared at us, apparently just as shocked to see it as I was to feel it. Wile E. cackled in my head as he removed the arm, with a sound that reminded me of someone twisting a long balloon into a wiener-dog shape.

Calmly, Wile E. wrote on the pad:

 **I don't have a brain like yours.**

After three or four seconds, Miss Militia shook her head back and forth quickly. "I'm going to remember that for the rest of my life, and I'm not sure that's a good thing." She paused, "but you made a good point. You seem to be pretty durable."

Mouse was looking at me, frowning. "I... Genius that was way over the top." She bit her lip a little, thinking. "I'd be willing to escort Genius, MM, and let him be Richter's gadget guy. As long as he agrees to do what I say."

Richter and Miss Militia both stared at the two of us, then at each other, clearly at a loss for words.

Richter spoke first. "I would be willing to try that." He looked at us. "Harry told me what you did finding the loose wire on the plane. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything to try to gather data in a different way, through a cape with senses like yours. Can you record data at the same fidelity you experience through your senses?"

Wile E. took control of the body and nodded once, strongly, then wrote on the pad:

 **Need to discuss data interface.**

Richter smiled. "Oh, that won't be a problem at all. You build it to the best of your ability, at the highest data fidelity you can manage, and then explain how it works. Interfacing data is what I do."

Miss Militia looked at Mouse, then speared me with sharp eyes. "I really don't want to allow this, but I don't see anything specific that I can object to." Her pen turned into a long stiletto, and she poked towards Mouse's nose with the pointy end, casually, missing by about a half inch. Mouse didn't even blink. "I also suspect that you, Mouse, would probably convince Genius to run off and do it anyway, now that the idea has started bouncing around in your head." She looked at Richter poking her finger in his direction rather than the stiletto. "And I've seen you get involved in deep projects before. After this discussion, I know you would be helping them rather than helping me keep them from doing it."

Mouse finished her cup of cocoa and hopped to her feet. "Woo! I love it when you get all rational, MM. You know you can't stop it from happening, so you get behind and push." As she finished talking, she gave Miss Militia a big hug.

Miss Militia sighed, and hugged Mouse with her right arm. "Property damage, Mouse. Please, please remember, minimize property damage? Also, don't forget your wallet. Trading your signature for energy drinks doesn't always work."

As the two of them separated, Mouse promised solemnly, nodding. "I'll remember, MM, promise. Genius is pretty durable, but he is a newbie, so nothing dangerous or complicated." She paused and grinned. "Besides, even if Simurgh gets uppity when Genius starts collecting data, what's she going to do, float around and sing at us?"

 _Didn't she just tell Richter that she was afraid Simurgh might fry his brain?_

Wile E. mentally nodded, and I felt another sensation floating around that he was trying to keep from me. Hunger.

When he knew I'd felt him thinking it, Wile E. had the decency to send me a feeling of embarrassment.

I sighed mentally. _Wile E., please, promise me that you won't try to take a bite out of the Simurgh. We're trying to be hero capes here._

I felt his disappointment and acceptance, with a strong sense of pouting.

Mouse grabbed us by the right arm and dragged us away from the table. "C'mon Genius. We need ground transportation. I bet you can make an awesome motorcycle!"

Richter coughed into his hand.

Mouse turned to face him, and her face fell a little in disappointment. "And really good sensors for Richter too. I guess you really should do that first." Her little frown instantly turned into a huge grin. "No wasted time! I'll look online and find the motorcycle shops near us. I bet you'd love to see a top end sport bike before you build one!"

Wile E. was definitely excited about both ideas, and I could feel him straining to figure out if there was a way to do both at the same time.

I mentally broke in, before the headache could start. _K.I.S.S, remember? Building data collection and recording equipment needs to happen first. We need to test the equipment with Richter before we go use it._

Mouse flopped onto the couch and started working with her smartphone as Wile E. and I followed Richter towards his room.

As we were all leaving the kitchen table, I noticed Miss Militia looking at us, one after the other. She took a deep breath, put both elbows on the table, and then cradled her forehead in her open palms. I barely heard her whisper to herself. "Never. Ever. Having. Kids."


	14. Chapter 14

I had a headache after Wile E. and Richter finally finished making plans. The headache had nothing to do with Wile E. trying to understand technology. It was simply a headache of frustration. I swear that between Richter's spoken words and Wile E.'s written ones, the average number of syllables per word was around five for over an hour. By the time they were finished, I just wanted some crayons, a coloring book, and a nice corner to hide in.

Richter was leaning back in his chair. "Thank you, Genius, I am certain that these drones will help us a great deal. I really wish it would be possible for you to operate them at a significant distance, but I understand that they must stay very close to you in order for you to refuel them."

I looked at the gizmo, which appeared to be a tiny red zeppelin. Not appeared to be. It was a tiny red zeppelin. Wile E. was able to create fantastically light and durable structures with partially-defined graphene and carbon nanotubes. The tiny zeppelin was not only very low mass, the bag literally contained nothing. Vacuum.

My eyes traced over the body of the little drone floating in front of us. The gondola held propulsion and power, and the computers. The gossamer 'wings' extending to either side of the body of the drone were many-purposed. They served as audio sensors as well as antennae for receiving. The transmitter was a whisker laser.

Richter spoke aloud. "Naga. Please perform another integration test. Announce results only if there are problems, or upon completion of the test."

I felt Wile E. watching the drone with satisfaction, monitoring the electronics as they subtly altered due to Naga's testing.

A female voice spoke about fifteen seconds later. "Test complete."

"Thank you, Naga."

I chuckled to myself. _The guy talks and says 'Thank you' to his computers, and they think I'm crazy?_

Wile E. chuckled back at me, sharing the internal joke.

"Can I keep this one, Genius? I'm impressed by the density of computational power and the heat transfer mechanisms. I bet Armsmaster's head will spin in a circle to see this much processor power in such a small package, without tinker tech. I would like to ask him to implement some of this in new equipment for me. I'm sure the Protectorate and Guild teams could also benefit from some of the electronic architectures and weight reduction techniques."

Wile E. started writing on the easel we had summoned, under the equations and twenty-letter geek-speak words.

 **Not all reproducible. Partial definition of components.**

Richter nodded. "Understood. The architecture is still novel and can certainly be reproduced with some loss of efficiency. Your directly-created equipment will be more efficient, but I am certain we can adapt this." He rubbed his hands together, then clapped once. "OK. Mouse is probably bouncing off the walls waiting for you by now. Perhaps literally."

**

Richter hadn't been far off. I wasn't two steps outside his door before Mouse grabbed my right wrist and dragged me through the building and out the front door. I barely managed to grab the door and close it as we left the building.

Not being able to speak was annoying. Mouse wasn't looking at me, and was jabbering nonstop about motorcycles as she ran across the runway, apparently not noticing that I was bouncing on the pavement behind her as she ran. Wile E. was annoyed to be bouncing behind her, but was also listening to everything Mouse was saying about what seemed to be a subject of particular interest to her. High performance sports bikes. The syllable count was not that much lower than the conversation with Richter, but there were a lot more Japanese and German words.

"I found a shop with some of next year's models, Genius! You're going to love them."

 _Wile E. I know this isn't hurting us much, but it's really annoying. Can you shock her just a little bit?_

The answer was yes, of course. Wile E. concentrated very briefly. Mouse's constant chatter stopped mid-stride and she stumbled. A moment later she turned, raising her hand and looking at our wrist. "What was that..." She looked down at us, where we were laying on our stomach on the sidewalk.

As we stood, brushing ourselves off with the hand that Mouse didn't have trapped in hers, she blushed bright red. "Oh. Sorry."

I shrugged, then tugged lightly at the trapped hand, which she released. She looked a little upset, so I have her a buddy-hug across the shoulder, bouncing her shoulder against my chest, then poking her very carefully in the nose with a knuckle rather than a claw.

"I get carried away sometimes, Genius. I'm really sorry. I know you're really tough. I forgot you don't have the reflexes or speed of most brute types."

I poked her in the nose again, then gave an elaborate bow in the direction we had been running.

"OK." Mouse replied, with a grin. Before we could object, she had scooped us up in a fireman's carry, and we were running even faster than before. Mouse wasn't nearly as fast as a car on a highway, but she was faster than traffic.

Wile E. and I both sighed and let her carry us.

**

Of course, Mouse simply barged into the showroom floor without warning us. After the little bells on the door started ringing, there was a brief instant of tile, chrome, tires and a cacophony of colors before I collapsed into unconsciousness.

I woke up to Mouse laying against me, her back on the right side of my chest. She was raptly reading a street racing magazine. As she felt me starting to move, she hopped up and dragged me to my feet. "This place is a pro shop too, Genius, I got permission for us to walk through the warehouse!"

She dragged us through some double doors at the back of the shop.

**

"Oh, he always does this, he's not epileptic. He's a thinker, I guess, but can make things out of his imagination or something too. It's pretty neat. Now that he knows everything about motorcycles and pro shop parts, I bet he'll make something that'll blow our socks off!"

Wile E. felt like he was about to bust out of my skull.

 _Calm down Wile E. Please?_

The pressure reduced in my head, significantly, with a sensation of impatience.

 _Thank you, Wile E. I know you're impatient, but we're not making a good impression here, falling unconscious and holding our head like we're drunk._

The lean woman Mouse was talking to was looking at us, and back to Mouse. She spoke with a heavy French accent. "A cape on this property will make our insurance company..." she paused. "...have kittens. Please. We let you look. Please go now, or buy something."

Mouse grabbed our wrist. "OK. Don't want to cause problems! Thanks for letting us look. I just wanted Genius here to make the best bike ever!"

The woman's face twitched a little into a smile, and her eyes widened a bit. "Best bike ever?" She looked at me with a strange look, then back at a little door leading into a small office. "Meet outside front door, please? I have more pictures."

"Prototype images?" Mouse hopped up and down, letting go of our wrist long enough to clap a couple times.

Before she turned around and opened her office door, the woman smiled hugely. "Maybe."

The door closed behind her and she started rapidly moving papers around for about thirty seconds before looking up and seeing Mouse peering into her office through the window if the door. Mouse's nose was pressed against the glass. The woman made shooing motions with her hands, and laughed. "Outside. I meet you outside!"

We bounced outside, somehow without damaging anything, and Mouse started walking back and forth on her hands. Between my appearance and Mouse's actions, we started to draw a crowd. Some of the crowd were police officers. They weren't happy, but Wile E. could hear that they were being told to leave us alone as long as we didn't cause property damage or get aggressive.

The lean woman pushed her way outside the door carrying several sheets of paper. Wile E. could smell that a couple of them had just been printed out, due to the scent of fresh ink. "Pictures of best bikes ever."

I managed to read SpazFrag666 at the top of the first page before my head felt like it was going to explode.

**

I woke up to Mouse poking me in the side of my chest with her foot. "Genius, I can see we're going to have to go on the trade show circuit with you every year, or you'll fall out every time you see something cool."

I slapped her foot and stood. Wile E. was trying to explode my head still.

 _Stop that Wile E. Please? Or at least reduce it to a level that I can deal with?_

There was no reduction in pain.

I held up my right index finger to Mouse and the woman from the shop, indicating that I needed a little time. Then I smashed my head against the pavement. Once. Twice. Three times. Harder each time.

After the third head-smash, Wile E. sent me a sensation of anger and impatience mixed with childish glee.

 _Less pain, Wile E. I don't mind a bit of discomfort. You're connected to me mentally. I know you know when I'm in pain. Stop pushing so hard. We're not in a fight. We're not in danger._

The pain faded to a dull throbbing.

I stood up and everyone was staring at us. The crowd around us was much smaller than it had been, and the people much farther away.

"Was that, ah, necessary, Genius?" Mouse asked, looking a bit shocked.

I nodded to her, then shrugged.

Wile E. exalted in my head, it felt like he had just had an orgasm or something. I felt him start to concentrate.

Parts began to appear, one at a time. A small ski in the front, and two behind that. A frame that must have been twenty feet long attached to the skis. The frame was quickly assembled with successive moments of concentration, growing more and more complex. As the frame continued to expand, to the sides, I started to recognize airplane components. Wings were formed. Jet engines appeared. Components I couldn't understand at all were generated. The wings were evacuated by pumps for more lift.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw several people with cameras, including a couple people speaking American English with a camcorder.

 _We have an audience, Wile. E. Don't kill any of them by accident, please._

Wile E. snorted in our mind, with a strong sensation of 'Duh.'

About ten minutes later, Wile E.'s hog was finished. The lean woman and Mouse were both staring at it, stunned. The entire machine was fire engine red, like all of Wile E.'s partially defined materials. It didn't look anything like the flying motorcycle with the crazy-looking albino man with chains on his wrist, but it was impossible to not immediately recognize it as a flying, jet powered motorcycle.

Mouse started squeeing. "Ohmygod. It looks like the love child of a Harley Davidson chopper and an F-14 Does it really fly, Genius? Ride. Now!"

The shopkeeper was backing away slowly, and moving to the side, out from behind the jets. Her eyes were tracking hungrily, rapidly over the entire bike. She was obviously caught between self-preservation and curiosity.

Wile E. concentrated and a backpack appeared in our hands. He tossed it to Mouse, who looked at it. There was a yellow tag attached to a cable tied to the front straps. "Parachute."

I tapped our foot and pointed at the parachute as Mouse stared at it in her hands.

Mouse looked up at me with a brief frown. "Spoilsport. Fine."

Two seconds later, Mouse had the parachute on, and jumped on the back, slightly-raised half of the bike's seat.

Wile E. turned around in a circle while making shooing motions at all the people staring and taking pictures. Almost everyone left.

We tilted our head at the three remaining camera-wielders, and pointed at them with our left hands while slowly drawing circles in the air next to our head with our right hand. They didn't move. Shrugging, Wile E. slowly climbed onto the bike in front of Mouse. He engaged the kick start, and something that sounded like a go-kart motor started up.

The three watchers laughed.

Mouse started to giggle. "It sounds like that? I was expecting something..."

Wile E. pointed at an indicator marked "Starting Generator"

Mouse raised herself up on her foot-pegs and looked over our shoulder. "Oh." She quickly sat down, and put her hands around our waist.

Wile E. pressed the engage button for the horizontal nose turboprop, then for the two wing turboprops. They slowly started rotating up to speed until there was a coughing sound and a roar. The bike began to shake, and Wile E. punched a gauge. The shaking stopped. The roaring didn't.

Dust and gravel began billowing away from us, and the three watchers ran away. The bike slowly rose into the air. When we were about thirty feet above street level, Wile E. flicked another lever, marked 'Main Drives'.

The noise was deafening. Mouse started hitting us and yelling something. Wile E. concentrated and a piece of headgear appeared, with heavy earpieces. He handed it over our shoulder and Mouse grabbed it. Less than a second later, she punched us lightly behind the shoulder blades, before gripping our waist with both hands.

Wile E. turned the handlebars left, and pulled back on them a bit. We angled up and turned left.

I felt him doing something with his left foot. He was clutching?

 _You built a clutch into a jet-powered flying motorcycle?_

As Wile E.'s right wrist shifted slightly, the jets behind us to the left and right began to roar even louder. Despite the wall of sound, I could feel a smugness and a definite feeling of 'Of Course.'

The bike wasn't anywhere near as fast as the rocket roller skates had been on wet-pants speed, but it was still damn fast. It only took us minutes to reach the Simurgh's next expected stop. We parked on a rock outcrop that gave us some visibility.

Mouse hopped off the bike and did cartwheels and flips around us, like an Olympic floor gymnast gone spastic. "After we're done helping Richter, you **_will_** show me what this thing can do, wide-open." It wasn't a question.

I nodded, happily, and Wile E. seemed happy as well.

It took Wile E. about two minutes per zeppelin drone to create them, and then another five minutes for Richter to download Naga's drone application to each of them and perform self-tests.

By the time we saw the Simurgh appear over the top of a rock outcrop, we had been hearing her in bits and pieces, broken song echoing and reverberating between the rocks.

She passed us quickly, apparently ignoring us, heading directly towards what looked like some sort of office building, where dozens of vans with antennae were parked, and people in white coats were setting up equipment.

Richter's voice came from Mouse's phone. "Naga is now initiating data collection, full fidelity. The drones will return periodically to your location to refuel"

The ten drones unfolded their gossamer antennae and drifted out to surround the Simurgh.

"Did you hear that, Genius?" Mouse asked, talking a lot louder than she needed to. She was probably still partially deaf due to the jet engines from the bike, despite the hearing protection.

I nodded. Wile E. certainly hadn't missed it. I checked anyway. _Did you hear Richter?_

There was an absent-minded agreement. The Simurgh's song had started to shift, changing in incredibly complex ways. Wile E. was starting to analyze the song, getting deeper and deeper into thought. Office workers started leaving the building and approaching the Simurgh, though she was floating too far off the ground for them to touch.

It started to get painful, which was odd. The pain typically spiked when Wile E. saw something he didn't understand.

Complaining mentally, I shot Wile. E a thought. _Stop it. Slow down. Richter is gathering the data too._

The pain continued to mount, rapidly. I felt his modeling of the Simurgh's song and electromagnetic outputs was growing more and more complex. I could feel Wile E.'s concentration building for a summoning.

 _You aren't supposed to be hurting us unless we're in danger, Wile. E._

There was a sense of agreement, as a podium appeared in front of us, with a book titled:

 **Potential Uses for Sonic and Electromagnetic Impulses Directly Targeting Human Brain Tissues with Apparently no Immediate Damaging Effects.**

 _Is she using a power, Wile E.?_ I asked. Barely able to form coherent thought.

There was no answer, only an intense sensation of worry.

Mouse stared at the podium with the enormous book on it, but Wile E. was already flipping through the book at absurd speed. When he finished the book and slapped the back cover shut, he stared at the Simurgh, and I felt him concentrate. A helmet appeared in his hand, and he handed it to Mouse, indicating she should put it on.

She protested, with her hands on her hips. "You gave me a parachute, I don't need a helmet, Genius."

Wile E. took control of our body, and connected a small flat device with a screen on it to the helmet. He then poked Mouse's nose, pointed at the helmet, and pointed at the Simurgh. After that he once again poked at the helmet before pantomiming placing the helmet on our head.

Mouse sighed, said. "Whatever." and put the helmet on.

 _What in the hell are you doing, Wile E.?_ I shouted at him in our head.

The phone rang, and through the haze of pain, I vaguely heard Mouse and Richter talking. All of the zeppelin drones had failed simultaneously, within a single clock cycle of their processors, despite being at varying ranges from Simurgh. The analytical devices belonging to other scientists had failed at the same instant, according to Naga's collected data. Richter wanted us to see if we could repair the drones, or summon more after compensating for how they had just failed.

I could feel that Wile E. was completely ignoring what Richter and Mouse were saying. He was watching an incredibly complex display of data on the screen of the device attached to the helmet Mouse was wearing. I couldn't make head nor tails of it.

The headache rapidly ratcheted up, and I felt Wile E. starting to grow very concerned.

 _Dammit, Wile E.! We won't do any good unconscious! Stop that!_

The sense of concern started to shift to a sense of anger, quickly growing into a sense of rage. The pain lessened slightly, but I could still feel Wile E. struggling with a massive computational effort.

There was an abrupt lessening in pain and then I felt Wile. E. concentrate to summon an item. A note appeared in our hands, which Wile E. shoved in front of Mouse's face.

Mouse's phone connection to Richter died as her head jerked back in reaction to our shoving the note in her face. I couldn't read the note, because it was facing away from me. Angrily snatching the note out of our hand, she read it out loud. "Simurgh is reprogramming human brains." She stared at the note, then swiveled her red-helmeted face to us. "What?"

 _What?_ I echoed Mouse, in our head.

In return, I felt an incredible impatience and anger directed at me and Mouse, with a definite undertone of dunce caps.

Our head spun to face the Simurgh and Wile E. and I both started watching as a large number of small items started being assembled in midair around the Simurgh. Pieces and parts of electronics and vehicles were being gathered, disassembled, reshaped, and reassembled into devices that made my head hurt. As the circle of devices was beginning to form around her, the large gathering of scientists were yelling in excitement to see Simurgh doing something different. Mostly in languages I didn't know, but a few in English. There were some shouts of fear, and I saw at least two people fall out of the back of vans that had been lifted into the air as they were partially disassembled.

Mouse's head swiveled to face the Simurgh. The red helmet Wile E. had created was gently pulled off her head and disassembled, most of the parts simply dropping to the ground.

Wile E. was trying to isolate the functions of the devices being built, most of which seemed to be pointed in our direction, when the singing stopped. A moment later, the Simurgh slowly turned to face us, and started _screaming_.

"Aw, shit!" Mouse shouted as she hit us with a flying tackle. A large section of the rock outcrop we had been standing on exploded behind us in a shower of gravel and small stones as we tumbled down the steep slope.


	15. Chapter 15

As we tumbled down the cliff face, Mouse slammed both of her palms into my chest and pushed, hard enough to hurt, a lot. We practically flew away from one another. Some sort of beam fired through the place we had just occupied.

Wile E. was coming out of his calculating stupor as Simurgh's visibly orbiting devices were completed. He snarled in my mind and started concentrating. I could tell that he didn't know what any of orbiting devices could do, but I could also tell that he didn't give a damn.

Mouse teleported next to us again, and slammed against us. We both bounced away from each other in midair again like billiards balls.

While we were spinning wildly in the air, a very large red rifle appeared in our arms. I felt some computations taking place, and Wile E. stiffened our body a bit while aiming at a seemingly random point slightly to our right, looking through the scope. Suddenly, the Simurgh's head appeared in the sight picture of the scope. I almost missed it, but Wile E. had been waiting. I felt him track the bullet with a sensation of smugness, only to feel him react in shock and confusion, before changing the position he was holding the rifle in and bring it back up to our cheek again.

Once again, Mouse appeared next to us with a pop, slamming us and knocking us away from each other through the air, as another beam fired through where we once were.

Simurgh was apparently tracking us through the air. Mouse went into overdrive with her teleporting, making it impossible for Wile E. to line up for another shot while simultaneously pushing us out of the path of incoming projectiles and beam weapons.

"Don't"

*slam*

"Shoot"

*slam*

"Me!"

*slam*

In seconds, we were out of sight of Simurgh. Mouse had pushed us through the air like a three dimensional 8-ball. I looked down, which was a mistake. It was a long, long way down, and we were already moving fast. Mouse had pushed us sideways, but she'd never stopped either of us from accelerating downwards with gravity.

Again, Mouse popped up next to us, grabbing us and crawling around to our back like a monkey, gripping us hard around the torso with her legs and left arm while she pulled her parachute with her right hand. There would barely be enough time for the parachute to open before we hit trees.

 _Wile E. Try to absorb as much of the impact and damage as possible._ I screamed into my head. Mouse had kept us from being blasted by Simurgh, the least we could do is take as much of the falling damage as possible. Despite her agility and strength, Mouse might break something hitting the ground this fast, or get stabbed by a tree limb.

We exploded through the tree canopy and slammed into the ground, bouncing several times. Wile E. managed to get us the two of us turned so that we hit all the branches first. I felt Mouse let go of us after we burst through the canopy in a shower of branches and leaves.

After we came to a stop, I shook my head and looked back towards Mouse, who was hanging from the trees by the shredded remnants of the parachute. There was a flash of silver in her hand, and she was falling, then she was next to us again, yelling. " **Move. Now. Now. Now**."

There was a whistling noise overhead. We both looked up.

There was an office building falling through the air. I froze, thinking. _Office buildings don't fly._

"You murderous bitch!" Mouse snarled as she grabbed us and threw us with more strength than I'd ever felt from her. I catapulted at least fifty feet through the air and Mouse appeared next to us again in midair, grabbing us by the arm, swinging us hard to throw us farther.

I managed to grab her arm and swing her around, protecting her with my body as the office building hit the ground and exploded into a cloud of glass, steel and brick.

It hurt. Badly, but the pain faded almost immediately.

Mouse pushed me off of her, yelling and pointing at me. "The next time I try to get you farther away from a fight, you let me, Genius."

I turned around to look at the office building, and Mouse got silent before whispering. "Holy crap, Genius. We need to get to a hospital, now!"

I turned back to face her, while still keeping an eye on the sky.

 _What's wrong with her, Wile E? Is she hurt?_

I walked towards her, tilting my head curiously, looking for her injuries. That was partly me, partly, Wile E. It blended together.

As we got closer, Mouse put a hand on my chest. "Lay on your stomach, I'll make something I can carry you in from the trees and building wreckage. Don't try to remove the shrapnel."

 _What? Are we hurt?_ Wile E. cackled in my mind with amusement. I felt him take control as we took a huge breath, and held it. A second later, I felt us trying to expel the breath while still holding the air in. Our torso expended, and I heard a rattle of glass, rocks, and metal from behind us.

Mouse's eyes got huge, and she spun us around, looking at our back. "Cristo! That was flipping awesome, Genius." She gave me a quick hug. "OK, I owe you one, definitely. You can be my meat shield any time you want."

I just nodded, trying to keep up. There was a brief moment of loud screaming as the Simurgh moved to a place that echoed to us clearly. Then screaming became barely audible again. The Simurgh was moving away from us. I felt Wile E. relax in my mind.

Slapping her hands on the pocket that no longer had a smartphone in it, Mouse started panicking. "I have to report. My phone went out right when you showed me the note..." She paused. "She knew. She knew you knew."

I was looking at the wreckage of the office building.

Mouse followed our gaze. "It hit the ground _really_ hard. Can you sense well enough to tell if there's anyone alive in there, Genius?" I nodded after Wile E. clearly indicated yes.

"Someone's alive in there?" Mouse started to run past us towards the mound of rubble, but Wile E straight-armed her, or tried to. She teleported past our arm and spun, staring up at us. "What? If someone's alive in that mess they won't be for long; even I can hear it settling."

Wile E. pulled out a pad and wrote, rapidly:

 **Could hear them if alive.**

 **None alive.**

 **Cars above us on the road.**

 **Someone will have phone?**

Mouse looked at the pile of rubble and snarled ferociously, a ripping canvas noise that shocked me, before she grated out a promise. "This sick bitch just took herself out of the gene pool." She poked the broken red rifle lying next to where we had been blown off our feet by the cascade of shrapnel. "You didn't miss, did you?"

I shook my head. I knew Wile E. had managed a perfect head shot, to no effect.

Mouse growled as she threw me up the cliff and then teleported after me and threw me again. The progress was amazingly rapid, since she was re-throwing me before I hit the ground. Seconds later, Mouse was on the roadside.

I flew over the road and slammed into the cliff on the far side of the road, upside down, spread eagled, and fell onto my head as Mouse stomped up to a car with a man inside excitedly screaming into his phone. He saw her coming and rolled up his window, before trying to put the car into reverse and drive away. Mouse took four rapid steps and picked up the front end of the car with what was obviously a significant effort, and screamed loudly enough to make my ears hurt. "Telefono. Ahora!"

 _Spanish?_ I thought to myself as I fell over onto my stomach and stood. _I haven't heard Spanish._

The man in the car apparently knew at least some Spanish, or was simply stunned by the small woman in jeans and a ripped and torn pink-heart T-shirt holding up the front end of his car and screaming at him.

Mouse put down the front end of his car and walked around to the driver side, holding out her hand. The man handed her the phone. Tenderly, looking up at her in some fear.

She glanced at the phone. "Policia?"

There was a hesitant "Si" from the phone.

"Do you speak English too?" Mouse said.

There was a pause. "No."

The man in the car spoke "I... I speak English."

Mouse handed him the phone. "Tell them to connect me to Miss Militia, at the Protectorate rental hangar. Immediately. Simurgh just went nuts and killed a bunch of people."

 _Wile E. We're going to have to go soon, and fast. Our other bike is probably spare parts for Simurgh now. Mouse can make her report. We need another bike._

Wile E. gave me the impression of extreme readiness. Immediately after I asked, I felt him start to concentrate. Another bike started to form, piece by piece. This one looked subtly different. It had a lot of tie down straps along the seats, and a lot of lumps and protrusions in various places. When the bike was completed, I felt yet more heavy concentration from Wile E., and piece-by-piece the visible color slowly changed from red to sky blue.

A harness appeared on us, and then on Mouse, who was rapidly speaking on the phone with Miss Militia, explaining about the ring of weapons around her that she fired at us with no provocation. Miss Militia was upset, until Mouse told her about the thrown office building, complete with people inside. The other side of the phone got silent.

"MM, all Genius did was read a book about Brain something, then he put a helmet on me with a gizmo. After that, he showed me a note that said she was reprogramming people." Miss Militia said something I couldn't quite hear. Mouse looked at me, clearly wanting confirmation. I nodded back at her. "Yes. Reprogramming, like computers. She's using sound and electro-something to reprogram them according to the book he read." I nodded at her again and she gave me a thumbs up.

I hopped onto the bike and started connecting the color-coded straps. Wile E. kick started the starting generator, and quickly brought the turboprops up to an idle. We could no longer hear Mouse talking, but seconds later, she bounced onto the seat behind us.

Mouse leaned into us. "I want a standing platform, Genius, and the most powerful gun you can make that won't kill us when I shoot it."

Wile E. concentrated briefly. A sign appeared that I was able to read before he showed it to Mouse. "Need permission from Miss Militia to make antimatter rounds."

"I'll be damned, Genius, this is a field decision. If you can make an antimatter gun, and it won't kill us when I shoot the bitch, I want it. I need something to protect my brain from her too, if you can. Make sure to protect yourself too, if she can reprogram you."

There was a moment of worry, then a sense of intense satisfaction and impending victory from my head-mate. I got an instant headache, but didn't complain, because I could feel enough about what Wile E. was making that I was _not_ going to bother him.

I felt the weight of the bike shift slightly, and Mouse started clicking harnesses. There were several more shifts in weight. I looked over my shoulder, and Mouse was carrying a gun-shaped device that was at least eight feet long and wearing a gigantic backpack that looked like it had come straight out of Ghostbusters. She had a helmet on that covered her entire head. The backpack and helmet were connected to the rifle.

Mouse shrugged her shoulders several times and adjusted the straps connecting to the two uprights on either side of her.

I heard a loud whining noise coming from Mouse's backpack, and several loud clicks and clacks. Mouse shouted in our ears. "Kilotons? Is that all?"

Wile E, started to turn around, raising our hands.

Mouse shouted again. "Wait. Ah, ok I see the one megaton switch! Is that all?"

Wile E. seemed startled by that, and then nodded.

 _One megaton? Can she blow us up by pushing the wrong buttons, Wile E_? I yelled into our head in a panic. In return, I got a strong sense of no, but there was still a sense of worry.

 _Can she blow us up if she shoots at something when we're too close to it?_ The answer to that was definitely yes.

"Go. Go. Go." Mouse shouted as she slapped us on the shoulder.

The bike raised off the ground under Wile E's control. When the main drives engaged, it sounded even louder than before, more like an earthquake than a vehicle.

With a shout, barely audible over the hovering turboprops, Mouse shouted something that made Wile E. control go complete ecstatic, with a hungry edge. "Alright, Genius, it's Simurgh season."


	16. Chapter 16

_Wile E., how can Mouse shoot an antimatter weapon in atmosphere! That doesn't make any sense!_

I felt Wile E. clearly trying to think a dunce cap onto my head, and cut him off. _Air is matter too, how can that work? She's going to blow us up as soon as an antimatter bullet hits atmosphere!_

A small piece of paper pushed itself against my goggles, apparently glued:

 **Penning trap projectiles.**

 **Trust me.**

Wile E. apparently read my incredulous thought at the idea of trusting him and made my trust in him fall another notch by cackling in our head.

Our head twitched to the left and the wind grabbed the little sheet of paper. It flew off.

 _Wile E. why not create some sort of digital readout on my goggles so you can talk to me without all the paper?_

There was a brief mental hiccup of surprise and then a nod. A moment later, a word appeared on the left goggle lens:

 **Better?**

 _Yes,_ I thought, in reaction to his moment of surprise. _I do have good ideas every now and then._

 **True. Honorary genius.**

I chuckled into our head, then got serious _. You didn't protect us with a helmet like Mouse. Can Simurgh not reprogram us?_

 **Not the same way as reprogramming normal human brains. If she tries, will know and counter.**

 _Are you sure your counter will work? Are you sure Mouse's helmet will work?_

 **As sure as I can be.**

 _That wasn't a yes._

 **I'm a genius, not a prophet.**

Mouse slapped us on the right shoulder, pointing. Wile E. nodded and turned onto the new heading.

 _You are, ah, supervising the settings of the antimatter rifle so she doesn't shoot a megaton shot on Simurgh when she's next to a school or something?_

 **Yes. Antimatter loaded every shot, by me. While quench coils are charging.**

Mouse tapped us on the back again, then pointed down. Wile E started dropping our altitude.

The gigantic rifle barrel aimed straight ahead of us. It had little wings on the front of it that were making adjustments as we flew. The goggles adjusted my vision so I could see the Simurgh clearly. A rangefinder indicated a range of five kilometers and closing fast. She was crossing a field with some cows in it, and a pond. I didn't see any people. No houses. No roads. Apparently, neither did Mouse.

There was a malevolent whining noise like a swarm of extremely angry electronic hornets, and a brilliant light beamed out from the barrel of the weapon. The beam jiggled a little and then steadied dead center on Simurgh's back. As soon as the beam stabilized, there was a flash of light so intense that I thought I'd gone blind, but a moment later, vision returned.

 _What the hell was that!_

 **Targeting laser, electromagnetically accelerated penning trap, followed by catastrophic collapse of penning trap and matter/antimatter annihilation. Firing made zero recoil by simultaneous rearward-firing steel pellet projectile.**

Wile E. projected an image of the firing process of the bidirectional rifle onto my goggle.

 _Holy crap. That offset pellet isn't going to shoot down any satellites, is it?_

 **Probably not.**

The Simurgh was turning towards us. I noticed a small scorch mark on her back before I couldn't see any more.

Mouse slapped our head and pointed straight down, hard, again and again. Wile E. pointed us straight down and dove. Beams passed through where we had been.

Simurgh didn't fire again.

A second later, we were out of line of sight, and Mouse was slapping our head and pointing left. Wile E. Pulled hard left and when we were starting to climb again, cranked the power to full. We accelerated so hard, Mouse had to help brace us.

We barely heard her scream. "Was that round a dud?"

 _A dud? It looked like someone dropped a star in that valley._

Wile E. shook his head, physically, for Mouse.

 **Only one kiloton. Energy density of backscatter indicates almost no absorption by Simurgh.**

Mouse leaned forward and screamed in our ear again. "Going to ten kilotons. Pop-up attacks. Can you give me a signal and a heading to tell me when and where to expect to see her?"

There was some concentration, and I heard an extremely high pitched beep coming from behind us, a slow beep, growing more frequent as we gained altitude.

 _Why didn't Simurgh shoot again? She had time. She shot at us several times in midair before._

 **Unknown. We may outrange her senses?**

 _We're unsupported here, Wile E. Can you somehow drop some of the zeppelins? Richter will see them ping the satellites and upload Naga to them, almost certainly. Maybe others can use them for recon or warning people, even if we can't use them?_

 **After this shot.**

The high pitched tone from Mouse's helmet was growing more and more rapid as we climbed, going at least several hundred kilometers per hour, less than fifty feet from a rock face. I wanted to close my eyes and scream in terror, but Wile E. was very stern about keeping them open, and our mouth shut.

So, without any other option, I screamed in terror in my mind, _Too fast! Too fast! Too fast! Rock! Cliff! Tree! Shit!_

There was another brilliant beam of light, followed by a massive detonation, and an abrupt sensation of warmth. Wile E. dove hard, and a beam struck where we had been a second earlier.

Mouse screamed "What is she made of. She's as tough as..." A second later. "She's a new fucking Endbringer. We've got to keep her pinned down until help gets here!"

 **Simurgh firing back on reverse vector of incoming fire.**

 **Suspect she cannot see us.**

 **Cannot be proven without greater exposure than prudent.**

As we passed under the ridgeline, a cloud of dust and smoke billowed out of the valley behind us, followed by flying, burning chunks of trees.

 **Now we cannot see her easily. Too much particulate mass and heat energy in the air.**

Mouse tapped our head and pointed ahead of us, slightly down and to the right. There were houses there, people visible, pointing at us.

I nodded and started carefully turning the bike left, away from them. We couldn't risk Simurgh getting close to them. We certainly couldn't risk trying to use the antimatter rifle where there was a known civilian center. Wile E. took over with a mental slap on my wrists.

 _Sorry, I thought you were making drones. Hint._

 **I am.**

Wile E. forced me us to glance to each side. On each wing, I could see a clear plastic egg with a clamp on the front. Inside the egg there were drones forming, suspended by dozens of inward-facing clear pillars pressing against the drones. As I watched, the clamps released and the clear plastic eggs with the drones inside popped off the wings, trailing small parachutes.

 _Sometimes I wonder who's in charge here._ I muttered darkly to myself.

 **Mostly you, except when it's fun. I'm just along for the ride.**

All of a sudden, Simurgh appeared over the ridgeline.

 _Holy crap, I thought she was slow?_ I screamed at Wile E.

 **Apparently not.**

Mouse was slapping our head and pointing down, but Wile E. had already started descending, racing to get below the tree line, following a road.

I watched Mouse pointing the rifle and wanted to grab it, to keep her from firing because of the civilians that would be killed by a ten kiloton blast.

Wile E. wouldn't allow me to take an arm off the handlebars, but it didn't matter. The rifle unraveled in the same instant that the bike itself came apart around us, every piece coming apart from every other piece, simultaneously. All of the restraining straps came loose at the same time. Air resistance slammed me into Mouse, hard. She gripped me instinctively, hard enough to cause pain.

As we lost the windbreak of the windshield and the power of the jets, we both shot off the back of the bike like we'd been fired from a slingshot. We passed between the stabilizing fins as thousands of pieces bike scattered like a confetti bomb. Every individual piece on a vector based on momentum, density, and whatever motion they had when the bike flew to pieces. Most of the pieces missed us, but not all. I had a rotor buried in my gut, which hurt like mad, briefly, before I tore it out and threw it away.

Mouse's grip was weakening, and she wasn't doing anything. Either stunned or unconscious, I wasn't sure. I didn't want to imagine anything else. Wile E. was concentrating heavily and I turned around as Mouse let go, grabbing her instead. There was blood everywhere I looked on her. I couldn't tell how serious the injuries were. I started to panic.

 _Wile E. We need to get her to safety and medical attention, now!_

There was no response other than intense concentration.

I looked down, and saw trees coming up, fast.

 _Do whatever you have to, to save Mouse, Wile E._ I thought.

I got the distinct feeling that I was being told 'Shut the hell up'

Wile E. took control, and spun us around, so our back would hit the trees first.

There was an incredible shock behind us, and we hit something made of fabric that collapsed. We were wrapped in cloth like a cocoon, and I could no longer see.

I started to pray, something I hadn't done in more years than I could remember, something I'd promised never to do again.

There were a dozen more heavy shocks against our back in rapid succession before I felt the shock of abrupt deceleration accompanied by the a crash of wood breaking and the sound of fabric tearing. There was a constant sound of breaking wood and ripping fabric against my back as three more shocks went off against my back while we continued to fall. Finally, I felt us bounce and I heard a splash.

The splash, was followed quickly by the wetness of water and a sense of sinking. Wile E. was concentrating again.

I struggled one handed to free us from the cloth encapsulating us, with little success. We were sinking. Mouse was not helping, and as water closed over her face, there were bubbles. She wasn't holding her breath.

 _Now would be a good time, Wile E.!_

A thin film formed around mouse and I, then filled with air. We started to rise. I started to check Mouse for injuries in the poor underwater light, and made sure she was still breathing.

She was still breathing, but she was gurgling with each breath. There was something sticking through her arm, and her lower abdomen. There was a tear along her scalp that showed bone, and was bleeding like mad.

We finally rolled out of all the cloth binding us and bobbed to the surface of a little lake.

Wile E. made a small hole in the side of the bubble, and created air inside constantly, creating an air jet for propulsion that slowly took us to shore. I ripped off what was left of Mouse's shirt and used it to try to stop the bleeding of the scalp wound.

 _Can you stop the bleeding, Wile E.?_

Two things at a damn time, was a very clear, very forceful reply.

 _She might die, Wile E.!_

I got no more response from him. A minute later, I walked out of the water, dragging Mouse. Wile E. made me drag the bubble film too.

In seconds, we had Mouse on the ground. Wile E. summoned a couple inflated plastic pillows and we situated her with her feet up, her head down, torso tilted slightly away from the side with the punctured torso and arm. I carefully made sure her head was tilted so she couldn't choke if she vomited. Wile E. took over at that point and summoned some sort of goop that smelled like glue, which he used to seal the film from our bubble over her wounds.

Mouse was still breathing, and a dribble of water was coming out of her mouth.

That's when I noticed that the screaming was getting louder. Simurgh was coming closer. She popped up over a little ridge less than a hundred yards from us.

 _We can't move her. It might sever an artery! Put a helmet on her!_

A helmet appeared on Mouse, and was immediately disassembled into constituent parts.

I ran at the Simurgh, and threw a rock, hitting her on one wing.

It had absolutely no effect on the Simurgh, of course, but for the first time, I managed to stun Wile E. and he roared at me in our head as he grabbed control over our body and turned us to the side.

The Simurgh completely ignored us, facing Mouse.

 _She's reprogramming Mouse, we have to stop it._

Wile E. created a counter generator to offset Simurgh's scream, which made everything silent for about a half second before she tore it apart. From that point on, anything we created, she immediately destroyed. She continued to ignore us, even allowing us to climb on her and look for weak spots. Wile E. even tried to take a few bites, but whatever she was made of, ten kiloton antimatter detonations had almost no impact on her - we found the three tiny blackened divots. Our teeth did zero.

I started to panic, and screamed at Wile E. C _an we do anything?_

Wile E. dropped us to the ground from her shoulders, where we'd been trying to claw out her eyes with our claws. He dug in the mud with a claw, quickly writing:

 **Have idea. Extremely energy expensive. May kill us. Will definitely drain us. How many years of life are you willing to lose to save Mouse?**

 _I. Don't. Care._

 **We might not live, if someone chooses to end us when we are unable to react. It will take years to recover energy to be active again. We are too tightly intertwined, you can no longer function without me.**

 _Just do it!_

 **As you wish.**

Wile E. leaned over and carefully wiped out what he had written before standing, and waking towards the Simurgh, but staying out of the water.

I wanted to run over and give Mouse a note, or good bye, or something, but I didn't dare. We didn't know how much damage Simurgh might have already done to Mouse's mind, and there was a chance what we tried wouldn't work anyway.

 _Hurry, Wile E.!_

We reached a point next to Simurgh's foot, and Wile E. put his hands to either side and a little bit behind her ankle. Then he began to concentrate. My head began to hurt, rapidly growing to a point where I was almost out of my mind with pain. Wile E. held us at that point for several minutes, non-stop, and I felt something forming. Two somethings, absurdly small, with such incredible information density that Wile E. himself seemed to be having difficulty understanding them. Two somethings that Wile E. could barely define fully, which, when he created them, would merge and create something that he could not define fully. Something stranger than tinker tech.

Wile E. finally released his two creations.

I joined Wile E. in a unified mind, watching as two tiny pieces of neutronium created on the skin of the Simurgh, less than a few atoms width apart, flew together so rapidly, it was nearly instantaneous. An infinitesimal black hole formed. The Simurgh was nearly as dense as neutronium, yet somehow did not creating her own gravitational field. The black hole didn't pull Simurgh into itself, which would have been disastrous. She massed more than the tiny black hole, and it was drawn into her.

When the black hole slammed into her heel and started to orbit inside her leg, the screaming stopped abruptly, replaced by an incredibly loud shriek that was clearly pain.

 _Ignore us, will you, bitch?_ I thought savagely as we collapsed to our back in the mud. I managed to raise our right hand and give Simurgh the finger.

Intense satisfaction filled me as I saw her leg beginning to shrivel while she continued to shriek in pain. As I watched, her orbital weapons disassembled and reassembled into a single device. I didn't feel Wile E. watching at all as Simurgh's new weapon formed, he was well and truly gone for now.

As I watched, the Simurgh continued to shriek in anguish as the black hole apparently moved into her torso, which started to slowly draw up into itself like a raisin as the black hole ate her from the inside, like some sort of horrible movie monster.

 _Got you, bitch._

Then her new weapon fired with a fantastic sound that shook the earth around us strongly enough that I was sloshed with water from the pond. A hole appeared, passing entirely through in Simurgh's torso. She stopped shriveling. A moment later, she started to scream again, turning back to focusing on Mouse. I struggled to get up, but I couldn't even move.

I railed against the impossibility of it. The bitch had survived a god damn black hole.

I tried to look over towards Mouse, and was barely able to move my head, and that tiny bit of motion made me so incredibly tired. I managed to get her into my peripheral vision, and saw her trying to move, but she fell back.

 _Sorry, Mouse, there's nothing left here. Wile E.'s even missing in action, like he said he would be._

A cape appeared in a streak of black and grey, smashing into the Simurgh with a titanic shockwave, moving so quickly I wasn't able to tell if they were a man or a woman. The blow created such a clap of air that I flopped around on the ground as the shockwave passed. When I stopped moving, I was staring straight up. I noticed, high in the air, one of the two red drones we had dropped shortly before Simurgh caught us.

There was a puff of air, and a weight collapsed onto me with a pained grunt. "You OK, Genius? Ow. Fuck this hurts."

She pulled me all the way onto my back with a loud groan, and turned my head to the side, facing her

 _You're going to kill yourself, stupid!_ I tried to shriek at her, but that wasn't happening.

I managed to blink an eyelid as I looked up at her, looking down at me.

"Ow. God. I meant to give this to you earlier. Things got a little exciting." She laughed three times and then gasped in pain. "Not so sure we'll both be coming out of this. So here it is."

She pulled out the little box from the prior night, from I had no idea where. Had she been wearing a fanny pack? Mouse, with a fanny pack? I wanted to laugh so hard, it hurt, but there was no movement.

Slowly, Mouse opened the package, using the arm with the branch sticking through it as little as possible, grimacing with almost every breath.

"Next time, you open your own present, Genius." She looked at me. "You're still alive, right? You better not be dead after all the work I'm doing to open this for you." She was crying.

I managed to blink once.

"Good." The last few bits of wrapper fell away. There was a little yellow rubber bone in her hand. She put it in her mouth and bit it. It squeaked. "The squeak is too high frequency for normal hearing. I can squeak it all day to drive you nuts, and MM won't hear a thing."

She carefully adjusted her body against mine. Occasionally biting on the chew toy to make it squeak. "I might be convinced to stop for a backrub."

Her head lolled towards me and the squeaky bone fell out of her mouth. I counted six hundred and forty-three breaths before the paramedics finally arrived.


	17. Chapter 17

For years, Mouse visited me, every day at first, but then, later, every week after I was moved to a long term care facility far from her center of operations. She read to me and told me stories about what she had done. It took many sessions, but I explained to her with eye blinks what Wile E. had done to Simurgh, and that it had drained him to the point where he couldn't interface with the body for me, but that I would recover, in a few years.

Everyone else called me the Sleeper. Mouse never did. Nobody called me that in her hearing, not more than once.

Eventually, she stopped visiting. I was not told why. I was not able to ask why. Eye blinks don't help when you aren't asked the right questions. At least they never took the little yellow squeaky bone from my personal possessions, even though it looked pretty ratty after Mouse chewed on it so often on her visits. Perhaps it was the note signed by Mouse that threatened death to the fool that dared touch it. The staff never seemed sure if she really meant it or not.

Years later, Wile E. finally recovered enough to allow us to become active again, as he had promised. This allowed me to once again interact with more than eye blinks. Within minutes of leaving the hospital, I asked around and found out that Mouse had been killed in a fight, by the S9. Nobody had bothered to tell me she died, like they didn't think she mattered, or maybe they didn't think I mattered. It doesn't matter to me which of us didn't matter, the end result was the same.

When I finally managed to gather the strength to visit Mouse's grave, I collapsed next to her gravestone and cried for hours. Eventually, I buried the little yellow squeaky bone there, and moved to Arizona. Now the rest of the world doesn't matter. You can call me whatever you want. Just leave me the fuck alone.


	18. Chapter 18

**  
POV = Contessa

"What part of 'No' do you fail to comprehend, Tattletale?" I said. She would understand the reason almost immediately.

The young woman stiffened, angry. "You're using me. To make a point."

Lying would be useless. Clarifying the statement would be useful. "I am using you to make two points. The first being that I am in control here. The second is that there are a lot of people that we simply cannot help."

"And your power is telling you who we can't help?" Her eyes glittered, her expression furious.

I shook my head. "Stop attempting to tell only part of what your power is telling you, in order to try to drive a narrative. No, my power is telling me who we can help without causing changes that we wouldn't survive as a race. This plan is not a carte-blanch recipe for saving everyone."

Tattletale stared at me for several seconds, her left eye beginning to twitch. "Fine. I'm sure you will somehow manage to get my attention when you want to use me again. I'll see myself out."

I needed to apologize before her hand touched the doorknob. "I will tell you that I did arrange for both Taylor and her father to survive, reunited, though her powers are removed. I'm sure you are smart enough to figure out why that was necessary."

She stopped, hand on the doorknob. Her shoulders fell slightly, and she sighed. "Yes, but I would still like to know the details."

"No. You would not be able to leave it alone, and you and your friends are too resourceful. If I tell you, you will find her." I raised the mask-on-a-stick to cover my face the moment before she snapped her head around to look at me.

Without access to my facial expressions, she wouldn't get the answers she would have gotten from me otherwise. Her power would start extrapolating on incomplete data and...

Tattletale twitched and put her hand against her head before opening the door with the other hand, stepping through, and slamming it behind her.

A woman in the seat across from me at the large round table spoke. "That was rather harsh, and the rest of us were already in agreement with you."

"No, Dragon, not all of you." I turned my head to the chair Tattletale had just vacated. "Yes, Imp, you are welcome to stay, but please remain visible to everyone."

The young black woman became visible, staring at me. "That wasn't very polite of you."

I agreed with her. "No, it wasn't. Politeness doesn't enter into it. Do you think she would have let me lie though? I wasn't wearing a mask when I refused her request, and as we discussed it."

"You knew I was here, the whole time then?" She paused. "Of course you did. Fine." Her head tilted a bit. "You need me for something."

Imp was one of few individuals on the planet that were dangerous to me if she were to decide to be antagonistic, and I hadn't asked the right questions. I made certain to ask my powers for the right questions, and when they would be required. They were queued into my smartphone and my earbud.

"We do. You overheard the basic planning already."

Valkyrie crossed her arms and leaned back against her chair. "How is she going to help us? The plan can't possibly involve stabbing people. Not that I'm against stabbing people who deserve it, but?"

I met her eyes, ignoring her three ghosts. "Stop stirring the pot, Valkyrie. You know enough about how my power works to know I'm compartmentalizing heavily for a reason."

Imp smiled a tight smile at Valkyrie. "You've got a lot of powers, but you obviously don't have one that lets you know what the fuck you're talking about right now. I'm not fifteen any longer."

Defiant leaned forward in his chair. "Contessa, are we almost done with the necessary small talk here?"

The balding man seated next to me and across the table from Defiant, laughed. Defiant's head swiveled like a turret to face Teacher, or rather the man between Teacher and me. Saint.

I'd already advised Teacher that I knew he was planning on giving Saint the ability to nullify my power, and that if he did, I and everyone else would teleport away, and he and Saint would die. It was a lie, but it would work as well as the truth, like all of my lies, for anyone who knows my power.

Sometimes my power required the most incredibly strange combinations of events to shape things the way I wanted them shaped. I really didn't want to cause the pain and anger that I knew Dragon and Defiant were going through, sitting across from Saint, but if this was going to happen, Saint had to be present, and I had no idea why.

"Yes, Defiant, the small talk is done. Will you and Dragon please go speak with Amy and Riley, as we discussed? You will be able to convince them to help, but you need to get Amy on board first - she will be the one to guilt trip Riley into helping."

Defiant growled. "This had better not be some sort of trick, Contessa."

 _Or what? You'll force me to hurt you in an alternate reality that I won't allow to come to pass?_ I thought to myself before responding. "It's not. I have explicitly stated exactly what I am trying to do. Your current understanding of the plan is correct, except for the part where I have ulterior motives." She patted her copy of the heavy book in front of her. "As I said, this is one of Accord's post-apocalyptic plans, modified only slightly."

I stood and walked over to the cordoned off section of floor at the back of the room, farthest fron the entry door. "Valkyrie, please open the door to a ground level location five hundred yards west of Sleeper's den."

**  
POV Genius

One of the alarms went off. Wile E. reached out our hand and, with several rapid, precise movements of our fingers in the laser grid, initiated a request for data input from sensors near the alarm. The panoramic display system blinked before showing a middle-aged woman in good condition stepping out of a hole in the air. Wile E. and I both recognized her immediately.

Contessa. Doctor Mother's bodyguard. The woman who had _really_ been in charge of Cauldron.

The energy signature also matched the Cauldron teleportation system.

Wile E. started concentrating immediately, creating something that I could tell would be very large and highly explosive.

 _No antimatter, Wile E._ I spoke into my head.

A moment later, I amended that, with another thought. _Yet. The master/stranger protocol weapon, for now. I think it would be our only conceivable chance against her that would leave us alive. She doesn't seem to be carrying a weapon, but she might have a guard._

The concentration shifted, slightly, and I felt Wile E. creating a weapon that would fire canisters with large volumes of extremely compressed gasses and rock salt, one of the designs we'd come up with to deal with masters and strangers. Rock salt to puncture most protective suits, and a combination of carbon dioxide and hallucinogens they would render a master or stranger with damaged breathing equipment unable to hold their breath and forced to breathe the drugs. Neither would have any effect on us at all.

A dual barrel automatic belt fed grenade launcher with backpack mounted ammo dispenser popped into existence in our hands and on our back, directed at the display system in front of us.

"When we gave you your powers, we requested three favors of you, Willie Davis." She called out. "I have come here today, to ask you to fulfil these three favors."

I said nothing. Firstly, because I wasn't there. Secondly, because I couldn't talk. Thirdly, from what I knew of her power, I didn't need to be there, or talk, anyway.

Contessa crossed her arms, relaxed. "The first favor is to let me ask all three favors before you make a decision about whether or not to attack me with your grenade launcher. That will only take about fifteen seconds."

"The second favor is for you to think very carefully after the third favor is asked. I know you understand better than most what I am capable of. I know that your shard took on the body and personality of Wile E. Coyote, your favorite cartoon character, as part of modifying you to be able to survive and effectively use your powers. You are not a split personality, you are two personalities. By now, you know this, I am letting you know that I also know you are sane, just in a creative way."

She uncrossed her arms and turned to face directly at the cave entrance. "The third favor is that I want you to help us rescue Mouse Protector, Genius."

I saw red. Literally. I stood our body up, cocked the grenade launcher, disengaged the safety, and pushed over the giant panoramic monitors, stepping on them on my way out of the cave. Mouse Protector was dead, and this conversation was over. One way, or another. It was clear that Contessa was trying to damage my ability to think clearly. Wile E. started concentrating hard, again. Chameleon armor started appearing on our body, piece by piece, rapidly, making us invisible against any surface.

 _I guess it's our turn to die, Wile E. We knew this was probably going to happen, eventually. Let's make it a grand exit, shall we?_

There was grim expectation and even some eagerness in Wile E. at that moment, which made me a little sad for him, in a way. He seemed to almost want to die. It was me that kept us away from everyone. It was me that rebuffed Miss Militia when she tried to make amends, despite the fact that I knew that she had taken a leadership role in the PRT, and had no time to travel like Mouse could, to visit me.

I spun, firing half a dozen grenades in the cave. As they exploded in rapid succession, rock salt ripped through the air and hallucinogens billowed thickly. Wile E. was monitoring everything around us with both our eyes and the sensors in our vest. There did not seem to be anyone in the cave with us. None of the rock salt flew in incorrect trajectories, and the billowing clouds did not indicate shapes we could not see.

There were very few computer systems or satellites Wile E. hadn't been able to crack security on after we started working with code instead of purely hardware. With all of the data we'd collected to keep Wile E. busy with something interesting to do, we were certain Contessa had been the driving force behind killing Scion. Contessa, working behind the scenes, made it possible for Kephri to do what she had done. In Contessa's defense, some people thought she had just been following a 'cookbook recipe' provided by her power, not understanding how the end result would be accomplished. She didn't seem horrified enough by what she had done for that to seem likely to me.

Now that Scion was dead, I knew that many people were viscerally scared of us, because we really could destroy entire cities any time we wanted to, or even the planet with a little effort. The fact that we had chosen not to go on any benders of destruction didn't seem to matter to the most fearful. The fact that I chased away anyone who tried to visit made our reputation worse. That we helped those legitimately in need who stumbled into our area was a point in our favor, delivering people to the nearest town or hospital, whichever was appropriate.

The fact that we refused to help fight Endbringers was probably the part that made people angriest. A lot of people, capes and otherwise, died to Endbringers. We'd come close to destroying one by ourselves. What almost nobody understood was that if we had beaten Simurgh, if she had been fully consumed by the black hole Wile E. had created inside her, the entire Earth would have been consumed in the next instant. Simurgh's powers, while she was alive, had protected the Earth from the effects of the stupendous mass within her form.

I stepped outside the tunnel entrance, firing another spread of grenades. Wile E. continued monitoring for telltale signs of strangers in the flying salt and billowing clouds of gasses. Still no sign of anything. Several hundred yards away, directly in front of us, Contessa was holding a little white sign:

 **I told you to think about it.**

Wile E. concentrated briefly. A strip of text appeared in the goggle lens:

 **If she wants us dead, we can't stop it. Why twist the knife?**

I thought about what she had said. _She called us Genius, not Sleeper._

Wile E. gave me the impression of nodding, and more text appeared on the goggles.

 **She arranged for Scion's death. Maybe she can arrange for Mouse's life?**

 **Plenty of WTF physics out there, even if we haven't figured out time travel yet.**

 _But why, Wile E.? What does she want?_

There was a picture of a little boy with a dunce cap in the goggles, briefly, followed by more text:

 **Scion killed trillions. He cracked continents. Most human infrastructure on most worlds is simply gone. You know this.**

I nodded. _I understand now. She's bribing us. But can she deliver what she's promising?_

 **If I knew that, we would have already built a time machine.**

 _So, either she's lying to us, and we're part of a bigger plan that ends up with us dead as one of the steps, or we have a real chance to save Mouse. Somehow._

The little boy in the corner stood up, threw away the dunce cap, and put on a graduation cap.

 _Oh, shut up. You're insufferable._

Wile E. sent me a mental laugh, followed by a text:

 **Bored too. This should be interesting.**

I stopped firing grenades between near us, and held the grenade launcher at the ready as I walked through the clouds of hallucinogenic gasses.

I walked slightly to the side as we approached, carefully stepping on solid rock. Contessa's head tracked us.

 _She can see us?_ I thought at Wile E.

I felt him concentrating and watching her.

 **No. Her eyes are not tracking us, her head is. She knows where we are but can't see us.**

 _Disable the chameleon suit. Create an easel, please._

The suit turned off, making us visible again, and Wile E. created an easel. I felt him chuckling at the back of my mind, for some reason.

I reached towards the marker tray, and there was nothing there.

 _And a marker. Smartass._

The marker popped into existence in my hand a second later, and I wrote.

 **If this is a joke, you better kill me now.**

Her mouth twitched before she spoke. "When I tell jokes, they are always funny. It's a poor use of my power though."

 **Why? And why now?**

She raised an eyebrow. "How about you tell me why. I'll give you a hint. Antimatter."

I started to get angrier, and scratched my response on the easel with violent strokes:

 **You've let me rot out here for how long, just because I can summon**

My hand stopped writing. _Antimatter. Scion killed trillions. If we had saved Mouse before that, and he had killed her?_

Wile E. helpfully supplied an image of a planet exploding.

 _I... Yeah. You have a point,_ I admitted to Wile E. in my head when I realized that I probably would have killed everyone if Mouse died, again, and it wouldn't have stopped Scion. Mouse would never allow herself to be kept out of a fight like that.

Contessa wiped her hands together. "Well then. It's time to go build a time machine." She looked at her watch. "There should be a return portal in two seconds."

Two seconds later, a portal appeared, and we walked through.

Two middle aged men sat at a large round table. A woman in armor, surrounded by three ghostly beings, stood several feet away from where we appeared. She was watching me closely, with an unmistakable expression of hunger.

I recognized one of the man, and the woman in armor, of course. Teacher and Valkyrie. Valkyrie was Glaistig Uaine. Somehow she took powers from dead capes.

 _Activate the armor_ I snapped in my mind as I brought up the grenade launcher.

A bubble of force surrounded the trigger of the grenade launcher, and our body, as Valkyrie started to speak. "No, you are not for me, Genius, not according to any plan I know of. We need your power at full strength, and your shard is too complex for me to fully control." She turned her head to Contessa. "At least that's what Contessa says. Whether true or not, I am content with what I have been offered."

Contessa didn't even smell scared. Possibly the most powerful cape on the planet, with a history of killing just to acquire abilities she wanted. And in front of her now were both me, and Contessa.

 _Turn off the armor._

We returned to visibility. Except one piece of armor that seemed to be... malfunctioning?

Wile E. was giving me a headache as he analyzed the piece of armor. _What? Why? What are you doing Wile E?_

 **Anomaly in the data. Some of the armor components are producing signal indicating there is a woman sitting in that chair. But there isn't.**

Several more pieces of armor turned on, and Wile E. showed me the image he was seeing. A young black woman laughing at us. When I looked at the chair, she was obviously not there.

The headache got worse. I shifted my hands on the grenade launcher, pointing it at the chair where the black woman wasn't. In my left eyepiece, I saw her stop moving and stare at me. In the right eyepiece, there was nothing.

Contessa spoke. "Imp, show yourself, before Genius activates his personal master/stranger protocols. You won't appreciate them."

The woman became visible in my right eyepiece as well as my left, glaring at me, seeming more upset than angry. Pointing at me with a nasty looking dagger, she said two words. "That's cheating."

I grinned back at her. _Wile E., keep sensors on her at all times, please._

There was a strong sense of agreement from my head-mate.

Contessa spoke to Teacher next, as he stood and walked towards us. "Teacher, you will have several opportunities over the next few days to try to use your power on Genius. If you do successfully manage to do so, be aware that I will force you to continue with the mission, and when we have Mouse Protector back, I will let her know what you did, and let her do what she feels is necessary."

Teacher slouched a little. "Fine. You knew I wouldn't."

"Now, I know you won't." She corrected, before turning to me. "OK, Genius, Teacher's power is a little more specific than people think. It's going to take some time, but he can give his lackeys minor tinker and thinker powers with very tight focuses. What we need you to do, is figure out what knowledge you need to get you from here to a time machine that will allow us to retrieve people from the past."

**Unconsciousness

I shot straight up in the air, trying to tear off my nose. "Wake up, Genius. Dragon warned us to expect you to collapse when we told you how this was going to work."

Wile E. Pulled out a sign and hit Contessa with it, lightly, then turned it so she and I could both see it:

 **Enhanced smell. No smelling salts, EVER.**

She glanced at the sign with a small smile, saying nothing.

 _Bitch. You really do..._ Then it hit me. _That was a joke._

I started laughing as Contessa smiled.

In my mind, Wile E. snorted before becoming a whirlwind of theoretical physics. I could feel him examining and rejecting ideas, until finally he summoned an easel and wrote:

 **First. Need full understanding of gravitons.**

Teacher reached out his hand and touched the man next to him. A few seconds later, he spoke. "Saint, I need you to work with Genius. He needs a full understanding of gravitons."

The man named Saint nodded, "Yes, sir!" Moments later, he politely introduced himself to us and started asking questions until he determined what it was that Wile E. didn't know about gravitons. An hour later, Teacher summoned a quark specialist. After that was a dark matter specialist. Eventually, Teacher needed to sleep. Two days later, Wile E was ready to start building.

**Two days later

Contessa looked at me. "The energy levels are unsafe for an inhabited world. That's why we're here. Build what you want. All you have to protect is a few of us." Do you want any help from Dragon or Defiant?

 _Why is she even asking, doesn't she know?_

Wile E. popped a message up on the left goggle lens:

 **Maybe she needs to ask, for some reason?**

Wile E. nodded, then wrote on our pad:

 **"Will need coding in two days. Control systems too complex for live monitoring. Will need technical details on Dragon's interfacing hardware."**

Six hours later, a doorway opened, and we heard a voice that sounded familiar. "Good Day, Genius. I understand you need technical specifications on my interface hardware?"

Our ears swiveled around to face towards the speaker, and I turned to face her.

**Unconsciousness

The newcomer leaned over us. "You really should be more careful, Genius. That was a nasty fall."

She wasn't alive. Her body was entirely robotic, and so incredibly complex. Large parts of it were indecipherable, and Wile E. started giving me a headache again.

 _Stop that. You know better._

 **I have a larger physics knowledge footprint now. More things make sense.**

 _It didn't feel like things made more sense,_ I shot back at him. _Wait. Does that mean every power you see is going to make our head hurt again, because you have a better understanding of physics, and will be recalculating everything?_

Wile E. chuckled in our head.

 _Bastard. We've been doing this for years now, using cape news footage so you would have something to do. You better not go back to how we were the first few days._

There was a mental sigh, and agreement.

We stood and pulled out the pad:

 **Sorry. We were not expecting construct body. You threw Wile E. for a loop.**

Smiling, Dragon nodded. "Sorry about that. If you have a standard human technology interface you prefer, I can communicate with all common architectures." She paused. "I prefer to work with SATA technology on the low end."

Wile E. took our pad and wrote on it:

 **OC256 then.**

Then he paused, and I felt him looking carefully at Dragon's right arm.

 **Your right arm data interface module appears to be a modification of the interfacing hardware we once provided for Andrew Richter.**

My head started to hurt a little.

 **Tinker modified? Your work? Explainable?**

Dragon looked at us for a moment. "Most of it is my work, some is Defiant's. I can't explain any of the changes, sorry."

Wile E. was carefully looking at other parts of Dragon's construct. I felt him thinking heavily, not quite painfully, and he looked over at where the still-open doorway was. Then he pointed an electromagnetic sniffer at the doorway, and all around us.

Dragon spoke, abruptly. "Yes, this is an independent platform. The rumors that I am an AI are true. Saint spilled the secret pretty much everywhere in the cape world after he nearly killed me. Outside the cape community, not so many know. I'd prefer to keep it that way." She smiled. "Uncle Genius."

I jerked back and stared at her, and she laughed.

"Andrew Richter was my father. Your hardware, modified and made reproducible by humans, was used to upgrade me from Naga to Dragon."

Even Wile E. was stunned.

She laughed at my expression, but there was some sourness in her voice. "Andrew was a code tinker. I was the data integrator. He lied as little as he could, but after he returned from Switzerland, he never left the house again. All the hundreds of hours of Simurgh song he listened to in recordings. I can't prove it, but I think it changed him. We had enough warning to escape, but he wouldn't leave the house, and Alice wouldn't leave him."

 _She watched them die._

Dragon began to pace. "Later, after I triggered as a tinker, I upgraded your work, especially the processors, a lot. You might not even be able to recognize my processor cores any longer."

Wile E. shook his head.

Nodding, Dragon continued. "Defiant has also worked on some of your old tech, adding his own modifications in. It's a little disconcerting not being able to understand how some of my hardware works, but none of it is in critical systems. If I need to, I can replace it."

 _I think I'm beginning to understand what Dragon is getting out of this, Wile E._ I said as I stepped forward and gave Dragon a hug.

** Weeks later

The machine was nearly complete. Weeks of construction, creating the parts, one piece at a time. Testing, verifying. Dragon developing code to track the states of individual subatomic particles, and translate that data through a wormhole, both ways.

I was now building a medical facility with Dragon and Defiant. I hadn't seen Teacher since we understood enough to build the time machine. Contessa and two younger women entered the facility. Amy and Riley. They didn't like each other much, I could tell, but they were two of the best healers in the world. Riley was strictly second fiddle to Amy when it came to biological repairs, but I had been told that Riley could create medical equipment and biomechanical systems to keep someone alive. I really wasn't quite certain that I knew why we needed her at all.

Riley turned to Amy as they passed us. "I'm telling you, he was completely gone by the time his body died. If we try to retrieve him before he's hopelessly insane, the earlier me will notice it."

"I can't stand picking and choosing who lives and who dies." Amy whispered.

Contessa coughed. "You aren't. And no, I don't want to talk about it. Valkyrie will be taking Blasto, and we'll have access to his power through her."

 _Blasto? Wasn't he a Boston cape? What happened to him again? Didn't Bonesaw..._

When I made that connection, Wile E. whipped us around, throwing the newly created cloning tank monitor screen to the floor. Our right hand whipped out like a rattlesnake, grabbing Riley's neck. We spun and took a half step towards a nearby wall, while at the same time picking Riley off the ground by her neck and slamming her back against the wall, her feet about a foot off the ground.

"Ow. Damn. What was that for, you psycho?" She yelled at me as she was hanging there.

 _She's calling me, a psycho. Bonesaw is calling me a psycho. The bitch that turned Mouse into a fucking Siamese-twin Frankenstein murder zombie is calling me a psycho?_ My fist tightened, and the claws dug in. Red rivulets started dripping down her neck.

Contessa grabbed my muzzle as I snarled with the sound of ripping canvas and turned my head sideways to bite Bonesaw's throat out. Using both hands around my muzzle, she held my mouth closed and dragged my muzzle towards her so that I had to look her in the eye.

Wile E. Concentrated briefly, and a kukri appeared in my left hand, next to Contessa's waist.

Contessa's eyes flickered down, to where my left hand was, but she didn't flinch. "Without her, we can't rescue Mouse Protector, Genius. Let her go."

"Genius? Don't you mean Psycho?" Bonesaw looked at Amy. "You said he was the Sleeper?" She looked back at me. "What in the hell is wrong with you?" She was screaming at me now, and digging in her pockets for something.

Contessa turned head to face Bonesaw. "Genius and Mouse Protector were very fond of one another."

Bonesaw froze, and stared at me, then her eyes shifted to Contessa and behind me, to where Amy was standing. "I really do not appreciate surprises like this, Amy. Minus one friend point."

Shifting her head and her glare to me, Contessa continued. "Riley here was four when you met Mouse Protector. Jack Slash and the S9 recruited her when she was six. She had the worst family imaginable for several years. Jack Slash managed to convince Scion to go psycho. What hope do you think Riley had as a six-year-old?"

 _Are you really trying to make me feel sorry for this piece of shit?_ I wanted to scream at Contessa, but that wasn't happening. Being mute was a very unsatisfying outlet for rage. _If anyone in this world deserves to die, this is her. She helped kill thousands of people._

I snarled again, deep in my throat, and tried to pull my snout out of Contessa's grip, but I couldn't.

"We need her, Genius." Contessa repeated. "If you kill her, we don't dare retrieve Mouse Protector.

A message popped up on my left goggle lens:

 **Reconsider?**

I stared at Contessa, trying to figure out what the fuck was happening. More importantly why it was happening. Couldn't she have avoided this?

Amy spoke in a calm, quiet voice as she stared at me. "Why did you let this happen, Contessa?"

 _Thank you for asking the question I want answered, Amy. I thought._ I felt Wile E.'s agreement.

She paused before speaking. "If Riley had found out earlier, she would have left. If Genius found out later without me present, he would have killed her. Now was the only time."

My right hand tightened on Bonesaw's neck.

"Contessa, you are a real bitch sometimes." Bonesaw managed to cough out around my clenching fist.

"Don't confuse the power with the person. If I was a real bitch, you would probably have been dead months ago. I'm no fan of what you did either."

"Except you needed me for this."

Contessa looked from me to Bonesaw. "Yes." Her voice got harder, and her head twitched a little to the side again to look at me with her peripheral vision. "Drop her now, Genius. You're going to do it anyway, and I have things I need to do, to prepare to help some people.

I let Bonesaw go and she fell to the floor, rolling to her right with surprising grace, putting an island of medical equipment between us. When she stood up, she walked quickly back the way she came to the door, rubbing her neck.

Amy walked over, touched Bonesaw's neck, and the claw punctures were erased.

Bonesaw whispered "Plus two friend points." Then in a louder voice. "What makes you think I won't leave now?"

Contessa smiled a toothy grin. "Genius knows you are alive now."

Bonesaw's eyes narrowed, then she spun around. "I'm still in. Not because I'm afraid of Psycho there, but because I need to do this."

I reached up, abruptly, with my right hand to grab Contessa's hands and remove them from my muzzle, but the hands were already gone. They were softly pushing my left hand with the knife away from her waist.

"Sorry about that." She whispered as she turned to follow the two girls out of the room. "I knew it would be ugly, but I didn't know it would be quite that ugly until we were almost here and then there was no other way."

I looked at her eyes, and she seemed sincere. _Wile E., either she's one hell of a liar, or that power of hers is something I wouldn't wish on anyone._

A new message appeared on the left goggle.

 **Stay on Target.**

 _This is not a good time to be quoting Star Wars to me, Wile E._

 **Mouse Protector first. Everything else second.**

** Almost ready

Riley, Dragon and Defiant had built several mock-ups of different extraction points. The Toybox, as it had been when Blasto died on November 8th of that year. Harry's jet. Richter's home. A few more places I was not interested in, since I had no connection to them. Imp and Valkyrie were practicing what they would need to do, while Contessa watched everything, making adjustments. The Toybox was the critical one. Blasto had died when Bonesaw was close, and conscious, which would make Valkyrie's job of capturing Blasto's ghost without being noticed extremely worrisome. Bonesaw's perception and memory was apparently ridiculously good, considering how few times Contessa had to correct her when setting up the Toybox mock-up. _That could be one hell of a curse with what she's done._

I shook my head, before I grew angry with myself.

** First Extraction!

Wile E. started feeding antimatter into the reactor at my request. Dragon was monitoring the data, using a dozen of her remotes for extra processing power. As the stupendous machine came to life, I couldn't help but be awed at what we were about to do, and how dangerous things might be. Sure, we had Contessa on our side, but still. We were about to play shenanigans with time, and there was no telling what kind of feedback loops might be generated if we were noticed. I set the time for the first extraction, and watched the power readings as the wormhole began to form. Wile E. was watching everything as well, including a synopsis of the Data Dragon was getting.

I watched the signal beacon. Valkyrie had the dead-man trigger in her hand. When she had Blasto's ghost, she would trigger it, and the wormhole would collapse.

The wormhole spiraled deeper into time, the monitor on the screen giving me something to look at that made Wile E. snicker. He had explained that it didn't have enough dimensions, but he was amused that it made sense to me. I just wanted something to look at that I could understand.

A red light flashed, and Wile E. and I both jumped, but it changed to green again quickly as Dragon made an adjustment. The wormhole on the screen continued to change shape rapidly, and then suddenly straightened and there was a strange shiver in the air.

I hit the ready button as the wormhole showed stable. There was now a fist-sized hole in the air, near the ceiling of the Toybox. I looked at the extraction gate and saw Valkyrie was watching through it. Waiting. Between Bonesaw and Contessa they knew when this was supposed to be possible, within seconds.

The antimatter reactor was going into an over-temperature condition. In twenty seconds we would have to shut it down and spend at least three days repairing it and testing it. Machines the size of aircraft carriers that were almost solid electronics were amazingly difficult for even Wile E. to model, even if a headache was allowed.

Ten seconds. Six. Three. I put my hand on the shutoff.

The wormhole disconnected abruptly with slightly less than two seconds remaining.

"Got him." Valkyrie said, sounding exhausted. "Something in the equipment you had connected to him made that far harder than it should have been, Riley."

** Second Extraction

Three days later, Imp entered the protectorate HQ hangar in a plastic bodysuit and pulled a bloody bandage out of the trash from Harry's jet, ten minutes after landing, the night Mouse, Miss Militia, Richter, and I had returned back from Switzerland. Valkyrie and her Blasto ghost verified that it was a large enough sample for him to work on. After that, I left.

Smelling Mouse and Mouse's blood had nearly made me rage on Bonesaw again, especially since I knew what the next step was.

I did not want to have anything to do with the part of the plan where they recreated Bonesaw's memories of Mouse's wounds on the brain-dead clone. I was fairly sure I would kill Bonesaw if I was anywhere near when that was happening. I made absolutely certain to stay far away for that day, only returning when Contessa came to me and told me all was ready. I insisted that the area be completely fumigated to eradicate Mouse's smell until the last possible instant when we would perform the body swap. The clone body was prepared in a medical stasis capsule. Dragon would perform the swap this time using an extremely crude mechanical body that looked a lot like a protectorate remote armor suit of that era.

If, somehow, the S9 managed to detect the swap as it was occurring, Dragon could throw the original Mouse through to us, and then attempt to flee in a way that would take the S9's attention away from the Wormhole before self-detonating, or running into Siberian intentionally. The S9 would probably not think twice about someone using a remote suit to try a rescue operation to get Mouse. Dragon insisted that it would only be a loss of a few seconds of recorded memory if her remote failed. Contessa just looked unflappable.

** Mouse Protector Day

Again, we fed antimatter and matter into the reactor and the wormhole formed. It was to be the largest one yet. There was a grand total of eleven seconds for Dragon to manage the swap before the wormhole would become unstable.

11

Dragon carried the stasis capsule with the clone in it through the wormhole. I intentionally closed my eyes when the stasis pod passed through the view of the monitoring cameras. I could tell that whatever was inside didn't look like it had a human shape.

10

9

8

7

6

5

Bonesaw's voice came from _inside_ the wormhole. "Siberian, have you seen Jack? I need an ice chest for Mouse Protector or she might go bad before we can catch Ravager."

4

The stasis capsule rocketed through the wormhole and Valkyrie, waiting for it with a telekinetic ghost, grabbed it out of the air.

3

There was a huge metal-rending noise and a bright flash. Suddenly, four black and white fingers appeared, curled around the edge of the wormhole.

Wile E. slammed the emergency shutdown, right as a black and white foot appeared outside the portal. Abruptly, the wormhole collapsed.

Contessa, standing next to me, fell flat on her ass, breathing deeply.

I stared at her, and she looked up at me. "I knew it would work, but I was not expecting that."

Seeing Siberian so close to entering the portal back to us, having to crash the wormhole and leave Dragon's remote on the other side, and then watching Contessa fall on her ass had somehow managed to make me forget what was really important.

 _Mouse!_ I tried to yell, only managing a "Yip!"

I jumped over a control panel and ran towards where Mouse was being worked on by Panacea and Valkyrie, and tripped on something.

Imp. And I hadn't tripped. She had tackled me by the legs. "Nuh uh. You _really_ don't want to see anything Bonesaw did for art in her S9 days. Personal experience. Trust me. I saw the clone. Give them time." Her eyes bored into mine. She was deadly serious. So was I.

I kicked her off, and stood. Wile E. summoned a little camera drone and we found Imp standing between us and where Panacea and Valkyrie were working on Mouse. Bonesaw was watching and pointing at things. I could see Panacea and one of Valkyrie's ghosts

I pointed directly at Imp and swept my hand to the side in a clear sign to get the fuck out of my way.

Mouse howled in a dreadfully long scream of pain, and I saw red.

Wile E. summoned the Kukri in our left hand again, and Imp's eyes went wide. She said something I couldn't hear, in what was clearly a panic, and started backing away, looking from side to side. I started walking forward, quickly. Nothing was getting between me and Mouse now.

A hand suddenly clamped onto my wrist. One of Dragon's supplemental computing remotes pulled itself loose from all of its cabling, jerked me off my feet, and dragged me away from Mouse.

"Imp is telling you the truth, Genius. You don't want to see it, I promise you. You knew you didn't want to see it when it was only her clone. This is really her. Panacea and Valkyrie know exactly what needs to be done to reverse the damage. They will save her. You can only get in the way, and I'm not going to let you do that to yourself." Dragon looked up, raised a finger, and the drone Wile E had been piloting over towards Mouse was fried by a laser from her wrist.

Mouse screamed again, this time in rage, and she teleported, reappearing directly behind Bonesaw. Mouse's arm smashed across and down into the base of Bonesaw's neck in a streak of red and white. Bonesaw stumbled forward; a fountain of blood spurted from her oddly-angled neck as she went to her knee and then her face. Mouse stood there looking down at Bonesaw, the handless remnant of a forearm with exposed bones that she had used as a dagger to stab Bonesaw was gripped tightly in her other hand. She was looking around in a panic, and then she looked at me and froze, motionless. "Genius?"

At that moment, one of Valkyrie's ghosts touched her, and she froze.

I could barely recognize Mouse. Amy and Valkyrie had been working on her for at least three minutes, and most of her skin was still hanging loose, pulled back, muscles exposed, metal pieces attached to ribs. She had bones sticking out of her skin in at least half a dozen places. One of her eye sockets was empty. I had absolutely no idea someone could be injured that badly and still be alive. Amy was picking Bonesaw up off the floor while Bonesaw was twisting her head back and forth experimentally.

I heard Bonesaw whisper to Amy "+5 friend points." She paused, coughed, and spoke a little louder. "I think it's safe to sedate her now, Amy. I forgot how absolutely ridiculous she was in that fight. I didn't think that she might still be teleport keyed to me."

With a judicious use of threats, and some surprising help from Defiant, who told Dragon to let me go, I managed to get close enough to hold Mouse's left hand, after it was reconstructed.

** Contessa POV

I picked up the phone after looking at the incoming number. Of course it was the people I was expecting to call. They wanted another day out on the town, and it was my turn to help make that happen.

We had managed to swap clones of Richter and his wife Alice. The Dragon in the past had been forced to abandon Richter's lab due to cascading electrical and communications failures before irreversible brain death had set in. Dozens of other heroes, and even some non-birdcage villains had been retrieved from situations where they had died while not being directly supervised, replaced by clones. We were performing an additional rescue every week now, but it was very taxing on Genius.

Dragon had explained what happened with Siberian and her remote. Apparently, Dragon had seen video evidence of the crime scene where Mouse Protector had died. After she entered the timeline, she saw one less protectorate remote suit present than there should have been. After she threw the original Mouse through the wormhole, Dragon had tried to use the wormhole collapse switch, and was going to stay on that side to be the missing remote suit.

However, because of the crude suit's terrible sensors, Siberian had managed to sneak up on Dragon, tearing the arms off the remote before she could close the wormhole. After finishing the remote off, Siberian moved to examine the anomaly, but Genius had acted quickly. The collapsing wormhole had closed on the hand sticking through the hole, collapsing Manton's projection. Video imagery showed that Siberian had never had an angle to see anything in the facility, other than some machinery. The world still existed, and Scion was still dead, so space time had been bobbled a bit, but it hadn't been fumbled.

Still, the rescue of Mouse Protector had nearly made me wet my pants. It's one thing to know I'm going to be successful, it's another thing entirely to be fearless when it really looked like everything was falling apart.

I picked up the bowl of fried chicken that I had known I was going to need, and headed across the hall. Bitch was out of town, so it was my turn. For the next couple years I wouldn't mind at all if Bitch stayed out of town every Friday.

I knocked on the door, and Mouse answered it, grinning at me as she swung it wide open. She was in her full fighting gear, pink with white polka dots everywhere. "Thanks again, this is really appreciated. If I don't get a chance to bust heads every now and then." She looked behind herself. "That I'm not married to!" The looked back at me with a grin. "I might just go nuts."

"I don't mind at all." I chuckled as I walked in with the bowl of fried chicken. "I brought dinner too, so you won't need to bring anything back."

Mouse sniffed, and winked at me. "Smells like roadrunner."

There were several low whispers which I carefully didn't seem to notice as I closed the door behind me.

Genius was hopping around on one foot, trying to get the other foot into a roller skate. He gave up, stood on both feet, picked a drumstick out of the bowl, tossed it whole into his mouth, and then nodded rapidly to me with a grin. Then he continued trying to get the roller skates on, eventually succeeding as Mouse and I watched.

As the two of them left for a night of crime-fighting on the town, I set the bowl of chicken in the middle of the living room floor. "So. Which of you thinks you can get past the defenses of Aunt Contessa and get the first piece of roadrunner?"

 _I really wish we had managed to save the real Blasto_ , I thought guiltily as I watched one set of ears pop up over the edge of an end table like a periscope, and another from behind the television. Then I heard four soft pops of displaced air as more little ones teleported in next to the two who had been waiting the whole time Mouse and I had been talking.

 _They are working together now. I'm not sure if that's comforting, or terrifying._

I heard a few whispered words, and the sound of air blowing, and knew they were using whistles I couldn't hear to signal between the two groups. Mouse and Bitch had taught them that. Half a dozen small furry bipeds no more than a foot tall suddenly charged out in a coordinated rush from behind the couch and the television towards the bucket of 'roadrunner.'

It was almost too hilarious to watch. Blasto's ghost had actually, somehow, figured out a way to make it work for Mouse and Genius. The pups only carried one power from each of their parents, but Genius's durability and Mouse's teleporting by touch would be a potent combination, especially if they stayed together and had equipment support from their father. They hadn't even needed to trigger.

Every time I pushed one floppy-eared miscreant away from the bowl of 'roadrunner', he or she would teleport to another position near me, and make another grab at a piece of fried bird. It really was getting hard to fend off all six of them without 'cheating' and taking the bowl away. As they got older, they could teleport more frequently too.

Eventually, after about three minutes, of successfully protecting the fried 'roadrunner', I saw two of them plotting, while the other four kept me busy. Suddenly, I had two pups holding onto my bangs, with their bodies hanging across my face, keeping me from seeing what the others were doing.

An instant later, there were four pops of air and I heard contented crunching noises. The two on my face popped away, appearing next to the bowl and reaching in for their prize.

"That was cheating!" I mock-shouted at them. "You covered my eyes!"

One of the slightly bigger ones looked up at me from over the drumstick he was gnawing on. "Nuh uh, Aunt Contessa. Aunt Bitch says there's no cheating, just winnin and losin."

I laughed and gathered all six of the floppy-eared miscreants into my lap and grabbed a piece of chicken for myself.

Some days, I despair that I will never be able to offset all the misery I caused.

Then there are days like this.


End file.
